


Branwen, youngest brother; drink yourself to sleep

by Mallory_Clayborne



Category: RWBY
Genre: (for a sentence in reference to James's prosthetics), (insofar as what Qrow and Raven went through in the tribe), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anti-Faunus Racism (RWBY), Branwen Tribespeople, Drunk Qrow Branwen, Gore, Huntsmen Academy staff, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sex, Injury, James Ironwood's teammates, Multi, OCs include:, Overdosing, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Child Abuse, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22980892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mallory_Clayborne/pseuds/Mallory_Clayborne
Summary: ‘He’s always drunk!’A meditation on Qrow’s life and his drinking; five times he had too much and one time he stayed away.Nothing is so bad that it cannot be fixed.The way the people around Qrow have shaped his issues and expression. Raven, Summer, Peter, Ozpin, James and Ruby. Others, too.
Relationships: Bartholomew Oobleck/Peter Port, Qrow Branwen & Ruby Rose, Qrow Branwen/James Ironwood, Qrow Branwen/James Ironwood/Ozpin, Qrow Branwen/Ozpin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 57





	1. ‘You have a very skewed perception of that word.’

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter notes: Raven is the older twin by like, an hour or something. She likes to tease Qrow about it.

Filthy, covered in soil and blood (only half of which was their own), high on lingering adrenaline, the twins jumped together from the back of a wagon full of barrels of liquor ‘liberated’ from the village they’d just passed through and ran, side-by-side, hands occasionally bumping together, across the dry, dusty earth. When they reached the gates made of splintering wood and razor wire, they carefully looped their little hands through where they knew it wouldn’t hurt and dragged them open to let the caravan through. A pair of older kids, maybe 14 or 15 (very few people here knew exactly how old they were for certain), reached down to each of the twins respectively and grabbed them by a wrist, and with practised movement Raven and Qrow swung their bodies up hard so their other hand could grasp the top of the coach. They hauled themselves up onto the roof, nodding at the older kids who’d helped, and settled down cross-legged. It would only be another hundred metres or so until the caravan would pull up and park, but neither of them wanted to run it - they were physically exhausted, and with epinephrine beginning to fade, they didn’t want to completely burn themselves out before tonight (they’d made that mistake before).

“You’ve got blood on your lips,” Raven said to him, and Qrow smirked before making a show of licking it off.

“Isn’t mine,” he said, grinning. Raven rolled her eyes, and Qrow continued:

“You’ve got blood all over your neck,” and in ‘demonstration’ he lifted a hand to choke her. She growled at him and smacked his hand away, and he laughed, and after she glared for a little longer, she laughed too. There was a shout from the driver as he pulled the horses sharply to stop, and both Qrow and Raven slapped their hands onto the roof beside them to stop themselves moving, before using the purchase to push themselves up and jump down once more. Tonight; with Lien, food, booze, and slaves taken from a village Qrow was already forgetting the name of; a party was set to happen, revelry in the bandit camp to celebrate the success of their violence, and the twins were very much looking forward to it.

“Need more hands over here!” came a yell from behind them, and Qrow and Raven turned to see Arkwright, the man third in command of the tribe, getting people to help unload what they’d taken from the village. Raven rolled her eyes, as she so often did, and headed over, Qrow following.

Qrow had split off from Raven after they’d unloaded - Raven had headed off with some of the other younger girls, and Qrow with a pack of mostly boys in their teens, amongst whom he, at 12, was the youngest, but everyone knew the Branwens could hold their own no problem. He didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care, what Raven was going off to do, but figured it was probably similar to what he was doing now:

“Watch your back, Knot!” Qrow yelled to one of the guys as he sprinted towards the lake, jumping as high as he could a split second before he would have run out of dying grassland and tumbling forward once in the air before taking half a swan position and plunging into the water. The cold shock almost made him scream, but he kept his mouth pressed shut and opened his eyes wildly, looking around until he saw the light above him and dragging water down to his sides until his head broke the surface tension and he heard the whoops of the others stood at the waterside. He yelled in excitement before starting to rub his face, splashing the relatively clean water against the blood and dirt streaking his skin until no more was coming off on his hands.

“Branwen,” came a loud voice from the shore - not a shout, just authoritative. Qrow sculled round to face the owner of the voice and saw Tawny, Arkwright’s wife, with their two sons (both in their twenties, as far as he knew) behind her, carrying a large crate between them. Qrow waved and took a deep breath before swimming under the surface to the edge of the water. A little dust from the soil clung to him where his bare skin brushed the earth as he climbed out, and he shook himself like a wet dog when he was fully stood up.

“Nice work today,” Tawny said, and she reached behind her into the crate, grabbing a green bottle that she passed over to him. “We’ll make a proper bandit of you and your sister yet,” she said. Qrow grinned.

“Thanks. Gave me a rush, y’know?” He looked down at the bottle he’d been given: written in the language of the village, although he was pretty sure this word said ‘plum’, and that word said ‘fermented’. He twisted it open, trying not to get too much of the sand from his hands on the neck, and gulped a mouthful. The burn was strong to the relatively young boy, but what it represented to him was good. He was one of them. He wasn’t a baby anymore - he was a fighter. He had value. He was an asset. Qrow grinned even wider.

“Yeah, and you’ll do more and more, and the rush’ll get better and better,” Tawny replied, and she gestured to her sons to give bottles of soju to the others Qrow was at the lake with.

“So now do me and sis get to upgrade our weapons?” Tawny huffed a laugh.

“You don’t have enough to work with as it is?” Qrow shrugged and walked over to where his clothes (other than the underwear he’d written off as swimming trunks for his lake dive) were in a pile. He wasn’t going to put them back on - they were filthy - but he flipped his shirt inside out and dried himself a little, before bundling all the fabric under his arm.

“We’ve just got ideas. We wanna get better. I can do better than a field scythe, she can do better than a shortsword. We wanna build. We wanna-“ Tawny held out a hand, and Qrow fell obediently silent.

“Don’t get cocky, huh? Wouldn’t want you to have any accidents, pipsqueak.” She smirked at him, and got her sons to leave the crate on the ground for Qrow and his friends.

“Thanks, Tawny.”

“Just don’t break any bones, huh?” She raised her voice so everyone could hear her. “And don’t any of you little fuckers get messing with the prisoners, yeah? There’ll be food outside Solar’s in an hour, and more booze if you get through that stuff.” She left with her boys, and Qrow watched her retreating back thoughtfully. He wondered if Raven had already heard something like that, or if she would get it now, after him. Not that it mattered, it meant the same: they’d gained respect, and he’d learn how to drink to that.

The fire was burning bright and the shattered moon was glittering in the sky as the tribespeople milled around the centre space between their tents, drinking and singing and yelling and some of the adults dealing with the prisoners from the villages they’d run through. Qrow didn’t know exactly what ‘dealing’ with them meant, although he was vaguely aware there were knives and sex and nobody under 15 could go by the cages without permission. They were raiders, not ruleless savages.

Qrow had had a lot of drink, trying to keep pace with the older kids (and he’d spotted Raven trying to do the same) and though he fell a little behind, it was more than enough to get his skinny 12 year old body drunk as hell. Qrow and Raven could be hyper at the best of times, both could get into absolute frenzies when they fought, and right now Qrow felt like he was bouncing between time and space, asking what time it was and finding it’d been three hours since he’d asked five minutes ago, laughing and yelling and playing games where he hit the deck every other third step. He couldn’t feel the scrapes, the bruises, even though his Aura was a little inhibited by the alcohol, and he’d fought hard against the minute he’d had where he thought he was going to throw up, because Knot had thrown up in a bush earlier and was getting absolutely ripped to shreds with teasing for it. It was fantastic. He opened his eyes (when had he closed them?) and he was a few metres from the fire, alone as far as he could see. He dropped to his knees with a dull thud and grabbed a chunk of charred wood that must have been spit out, and if it was burning hot he didn’t notice before he threw it back onto the flaming pile, losing track of where it had landed almost instantly.

Was it that piece? No, it was higher than that one. Should he dig through and find it? Maybe, he thought, but then he thought it didn’t really matter. Then he remembered the fire would hurt if he touched it, and laughed at his forgetfulness.

The heat he could feel was enormous, and he didn’t know when he’d lost track of Knot and Raven and Ares, but he was sure his friends were around somewhere. Maybe they’d join him - he felt so good, so happy as he giggled for a reason he couldn’t put his finger on.

Oh, didn’t they go back to the lake? Maybe he should join them, instead. Swimming was fun.

Where was the lake from here?

“I don’t fuckin’ know,” he said out loud to nobody in particular. It came out as one, long, slurred word. I’ll stay here, he thought.

He awkwardly twisted his legs around so instead of being knelt, he was sat down with his legs out in front of him, and he took a gulp from the bottle he had before letting himself drop back until he was lying on the earth, laughing at the way he bumped the back of his head. As carefully as he could (although his gross motor skills were shot to shit, and he couldn’t really remember why) he manoeuvred the bottle so he could sip from it on his back without choking, and he gazed up in a haze at the tall, angry flames and the smoke obscuring the stars, and he didn’t even notice the bottle spilling the last dregs of its contents onto the earth next to him, where a little seeped onto his sleeve, as he fell asleep.

Pain was the first thing he felt when he woke up. Nausea was the second. He groaned, and opened his eyes to see who’d kicked him awake. It was Ares.

“Get up, man, or Arkwright will come find you.” Qrow groaned again, and pushed himself into a sitting position. Ares, a year or so older than Qrow, looked terrible. His normally warm brown skin had an ashy tone to it, and his eyes were bloodshot. He offered Qrow a hand, and Qrow took it gratefully to stand up.

“Time is it?” Qrow asked, looking around, expecting an answer in the early morning, when he normally woke.

“Uh, about half ten. Arkwright let us younger crew sleep for ages, but he woke up Knot at ten and said if we weren’t all up by eleven he’d come and make us get up.”

“And he kicks way harder than you,” Qrow grumbled. His head hurt. His body ached. He could practically feel his Aura protesting. With slow movements, as not to upset his complaining stomach any more, he picked up the bottle he’d fallen asleep next to, and headed towards the tent he shared with Raven, throwing the glass in a box of empties along the way. Tawny was stood next to the twins’ tent, smoking and gazing at a piece of paper.

“Morning,” Qrow greeted her, and Ares walked up next to him. Tawny lowered the paper - it was a schematic of something, but Qrow was having difficulty getting his eyes to focus - and smiled knowingly at them both.

“Good night last night, huh, pipsqueaks?” Tawny asked, somewhat rhetorically.

“I mean, I don’t think I remember a lot of it,” Qrow said, before wincing at a jolt of pain inside his head.

“You’ll hold your own better with some practice,” Tawny said, and winked at him. “And you, Ares?”

“I just wish I hadn’t gone swimming. Woke up and my bedroll was soaked.” Qrow laughed, and did his best not to react to a sudden strong wave of nausea.

“I wondered where you guys ran off to. And hey, maybe it isn’t lakewater. Maybe you just pissed yourself in the night,” Qrow joked, and Ares shoved him. Qrow fought hard not to puke.

“This,” Tawny said, getting the boys’ attention again, and gesturing to the paper, “is for you and Raven to look at. We used to have a guy running with us who used a scythe, and this details it.” She held out the paper, and Qrow reached over to grab it-

He blanched, and barely had time to turn away from Tawny before he felt the acid fill his throat and he threw up. He dropped onto his knees and retched again, bringing up nothing but bile, but he couldn’t help it. He kept heaving, and by the fourth or fifth time there wasn’t even bile left for him to actually expel, his stomach just contracted violently and painfully over and over, and it was an extremely long thirty seconds before he stopped. Gasping for air and trying to clear the tears from his eyes, Qrow pushed himself up off of the ground and rose unsteadily to his feet. Tawny was watching him with a look that suggested she wasn’t impressed.

“Thought you were a big boy now, Qrow.” Her tone had gone cold. He felt a burning shame rise red on his cheeks. Ares laughed behind him.

“Fuck’s sake, I’ve just never had a hangover before. Not like you’ve never gotten too fucked up anyway, Tawny.” His voice was weak and grating after the vomiting. Tawny narrowed her eyes, and Qrow barely saw her move before he felt the sharp sting of being backhanded across the face. That was an insult. Only kids and prisoners were slapped. It magnified the pain thumping in his head tenfold, and his vision swam, half from how shitty he felt, and half from anger. Something screamed at him inside his mind-

_‘you’re weak and a child and deserve to be punished’_

_‘you can’t tell the difference between good and bad attention, can you?’_

_‘apparently you want to be one of the bandits, but you let that one woman run without killing her’_

_‘why bother building things for yourself, it’ll all crash down around you anyway’_

Qrow shook his head. He bit back a groan of discomfort and clung on to the anger.

“Don’t be a bitch, pipsqueak.” Tawny held out the scythe schematics again, and Qrow snatched them from her, expression stormy.

“Fuck you, I’m not being a bitch. I don’t fucking take after you,” he snapped. He went to push past her into his tent, but she grabbed him by the upper arm and her other hand, the one holding the very end of her cigarette, came to the join between his neck and shoulder and he couldn’t help but scream in pain and shock as said burning cigarette was crushed against his skin. He ripped himself out of her grip and tears sprang to his eyes again, and he couldn’t stop them falling as he lifted a hand to the burn and touched the skin next to it. It hurt bad. He saw, in the corner of his eye, Raven peering out of the tent at him. Her expression was unreadable.

“Seriously, Qrow. Yeah, you were good in the raid, and you’re beginning to seriously pull your weight around here, but don’t start thinking you can get away with shit. I don’t wanna have to cut you down properly. Apologise.” He looked up at Tawny, and she sighed. Ares was frozen to the spot a metre away, and he didn’t dare say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Qrow choked out, his throat still aching from the acid, and he really wanted to go and hide in his tent. Tawny nodded, and he stepped round her. Raven held the canvas open for him as he ducked inside.

The tent smelled of the dim oil lamp they used each night, and Raven looked very tired and even paler than usual. Qrow half sat down, half collapsed onto his bedroll, and sniffed hard, determined not to cry. Raven watched him from her side of the tent for a few seconds, before moving to sit next to him. She lifted the hem of his T-shirt and he obediently lifted his arms, letting her tug it over his head. She tutted and he winced at the burn by his collarbone, and she pressed a short kiss to his shoulder before reaching for the canteen of water at the end of his bed. As slowly as she could, she poured the water over the burn, putting the T-shirt by his hips to catch the water as it rolled down his back.

“This water… it won’t fix it,” she said.

“It hurts.”

“I know,” Raven said, and Qrow couldn’t help the gentle sob that he hiccupped over. Raven’s free hand rubbed gently over Qrow’s stomach in small circles, “do you still feel sick?”

“Kinda. Do you have a hangover too?”

“Yeah. I feel sick and my head hurts. I’ve got some painkillers, and I was just going to sit in here for as long as I could before I’m needed for something. You can take some too.” When the canteen was empty, she tossed it over to her bed, and rested her head very gently on Qrow’s shoulder, letting her eyes close. She dug the painkillers out of her pocket, difficult because of the way she was sitting, but eventually she held up the battered box and felt Qrow take it from her. He popped out two of the pills (adult dosage, though he was four years off the recommended age for it, was standard for the kids around here) and swallowed them dry with moderate difficulty. He wrapped an arm around his sister, holding back a wince as the movement stretched the fresh burn a little. Strangely exhausted, even though he’d just woken up, Qrow felt the tears welling and he didn’t bother any more to fight it, just letting them slide silently down his cheeks. He took a deep, softly shuddering breath, and Raven made a soft noise of sympathy.

“We’re just not used to it,” Raven said. Qrow nodded, although she couldn’t see it.

“We gotta get used to it, though,” he replied. “’sides, last night was fuckin’ awesome.”

“What you can remember of it, anyway. I heard you talking to Tawny.” He huffed a laugh through his tears.

“And I bet your memory of last night is picture perfect, huh?” It was Raven’s turn to laugh.

“I was with you. Jumpcut, then I went swimming with Ares and the others. Knot swallowed so much water, he nearly drowned. Josie had to drag him out. Then I remember walking to the fire to dry – I fell over a bunch - and you were asleep there, so I figured it was late, but you looked pretty comfy, so I didn’t wake you up to come to the tent. Then there’s a bit of a gap, and then I was sat on my bedroll sketching in my notebook with the lamp on, and then I woke up to you chatting with Tawny outside. It was fun, but now I feel like shit.” Qrow sighed, the tears beginning to slow, and squeezed Raven. She turned her head slightly and kissed his shoulder again. “And the adults have gotta drink even more than that to get the same amount of drunk? Sounds like a hassle. Is it worth it?” Her words were slightly muffled against her brother’s skin.

“I reckon it’s worth it. Probably.” Qrow felt her shrug.

“Eh. Next time, let’s stick together more. You’re the most fun of all the assholes in this place.”

“And you love me,” he said. His voice was stronger now.

“Questionable,” Raven replied. Qrow grinned. He’d stopped crying.

“I don’t know, Raven. I felt so fucking good last night.”

“If you felt that good, then I’m glad I didn’t bring you to your actual bed. Woulda humped your pillow or some shit.” Qrow slapped her arm.

“Shut your mouth. You felt it too though, right? Getting drunk. It was fun.”

Raven didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she ran one of her hands up and down Qrow’s back, where she could reach, scratching very lightly with her fingernails, the lumps of his spine prominent. They were both quite tall for their age, and both skinny (they ate _enough_ , just no more than that, and spent a lot of time running around and fighting), although recently Qrow’s shoulders had definitely grown a little wider and Raven’s chest was achey and annoying. The concept of ‘adulthood’ was a strange one to them – they had no official documents, no birth certificates, since the tribe refused to submit to the bureaucracy of the kingdoms, and so they didn’t even know if there was any specific knowledge of them to anyone in Mistral’s government, or if they were just somewhere in a statistic about estimated bandit numbers. They were adults when it made sense for them to be classed as such by the tribe – when they were tall enough, strong enough, which would probably be three or four years from now. Somewhere around 15 or 16.

Qrow shuddered as Raven’s nails dragged down his side, over his ribs and waist, and she laughed slightly, letting her hand drop back away from his body. Qrow returned the gesture, moving the arm that was wrapped around her down so he could tickle her waist – they were alike in that regard – although she reacted less strongly, since she had a tunic covering her skin. Qrow’s head wasn’t throbbing as much now, probably a combination of the quiet, the relative darkness, the fact he’d calmed down, and the beginning impact of the medicine. He let his head drop to the side so it was resting against Raven’s, which was resting on his shoulder. She smelled earthy and familiar. He remembered, as an even younger kid, finding his and her misplaced clothes, like jumpers used as football goalposts, by sniffing them, able to tell himself and Raven from Ares, from Knot, from Josie. Qrow’s sense of smell had always been sharp. Raven had better eyesight, in contrast. She sighed gently.

“Like I said,” Raven resumed, before she sat up and looked at him, “fun, but the morning after’s not great.”

“I think I can learn to deal.”

“You almost threw up on Tawny, then backtalked and got a cherry burn for it.” He was silent for a second.

“I guess. But now I’ve had some painkillers and sat with you, I don’t feel so sick, and my head doesn’t hurt so much. And cigarette burns aren’t a usual part of hanging.” Raven rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. Just don’t be an asshole next time, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Sure I will, Raven. I’m not a little bitch.” Raven laughed, and Qrow shoved her playfully.

“That’s questionable too, little brother,” she said, teasing him as she so often did.


	2. ‘Bit of a brat, though. But hey, I like brats.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: Since we know nothing of Taiyang’s weapon and Semblance yet (come through for me on Team STRQ vol 8, please), I’ve used my placeholder headcanons. 
> 
> His weapon is ‘Battlebreaker’, which when deactivated, covers just his (left) forearm, and when used, extends to cover down to the back of his hand and up to the middle of his upper arm, similar to how Yang’s Ember Celica gauntlet extends from bracelet-size to covering her forearm. It can fire five shots at once, launched from just above each of his knuckles. The ammunition refills itself after a few seconds. It also hurts more if he hits you with that arm, since it’s covered in metal. That’s a given, I suppose.
> 
> His Semblance is ‘Momentum’. Essentially, any time he does something that requires him to expend energy (his two main sources being running and punching), his Semblance stores a deposit of energy, allowing him to collect and then project gathered energy out through his hands: either keeping it in his hands making him hit much harder and faster, or transferring it into a projectile – either the bullets from ‘Battlebreaker’, or something he has picked up to throw. Gathered energy, however, is not stored indefinitely – only for a few minutes after he does the thing that generates the energy in the first place. This is why it’s called ‘Momentum’: if he doesn’t keep going, doesn’t keep fighting, this energy will dissipate, hence losing his momentum. Laws of physics who?
> 
> Jarrah is a kind of hardwood, reddish brown in colour. Since James’s teammates are minor OCs I shan’t describe their weapons and Semblances any further than I do in the chapter – the only note I will make is that this section is set before ADAs were invented (like Fox Alistair uses). Maybe that’s wrong in canon, but… I don’t care. Just so you know, when Hayden does eventually get an ADA as an adult, his Semblance adapts and the ‘density’ part becomes more pronounced – he also can identify materials, weights, and learns how to identify intangible threats, such as fire and electricity, which his Semblance can’t see as a student. As for James, I give credit to manmadeiron on Tumblr for the basis of this, although I have tweaked it ever so slightly. I gone with his Gravity gun being called Habeas Corpus as it is another law term.

Taiyang was breathing heavily, his aura right above critical, but he had the perfect setup for an attack, so he figured if he was going down, it would be with a bang. Miss Goodwitch - who couldn't be much older than the seniors themselves, they all thought - raised The Disciplinarian, and Taiyang roared in aggression, catching the football-sized chunk of rock she sent flying at him and using the boulders behind him to kick off and sprint at her, before roaring again and pushing all of his energy, all of his Momentum into the rock in his hands, throwing it at her as hard as he could, following it up with five rounds from Battlebreaker. The rock he'd thrown caught fire in the air, and Miss Goodwitch had to focus what must have been a large portion of her Aura into her Semblance to stop what was essentially a meteorite smashing into her. As such, her back handspring away from Taiyang's shots was late, and the third caught her side, spinning her body and leaving her open for the final two shots to make contact. She landed on her feet, just barely, dust rising up around her and her Aura visually depleted to less than half on-screen, causing Summer, Raven and Qrow to yell out in support of their teammate. Unfortunately, it looked like a strong breeze could push Taiyang's aura into the red any second, so there was no chance he'd win (nobody had achieved it against Miss Goodwitch yet, and everyone seriously hoped someone from STRQ would before they graduated), but he'd certainly done his team proud.

Miss Goodwitch lifted a veritable hailstorm of golfball-sized chunks of rock into the air in front of her, and Taiyang knew he couldn't shoot them all, so he sprinted across as fast as his screaming lungs would let him to the side, hoping to outrun her Telekinesis, but it was futile, and Summer screamed Taiyang's name as what looked like bullets smacked into him and threw him across the room with a loud crash, followed by an alarm as his aura dropped into the critical zone. Taiyang rolled onto his back and lay there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling and coughing, before standing, looking tired but still smiling. Miss Goodwitch crossed the room, which looked like a warzone after such an intense one-on-one, and shook Taiyang's hand. He ran his free hand through his hair, and some powdered rock fell from it. He was dusty all over.

"An excellent fight, Mr Xiao Long, and a definite improvement with your Momentum since the last time I faced you. Flaming boulders are certainly going to do some damage if and when they make contact. Do make sure, however, you keep your left side guarded properly in hand-to-hand, although that was the only flaw I noticed in our brief fistfight. I would not have liked it had that portion of the battle gone on any longer." Taiyang grinned.

"He would have knocked her the fuck out, I bet," Qrow muttered, and Raven smirked. Summer tutted at him softly, but she had a smile on her face.

"Her style is just running away and throwing rocks at her opponents. Even Summer could knock her out with a blindfold on," Raven muttered back, and Qrow laughed out loud, but Miss Goodwitch didn't notice, or didn’t care as she got the attention of the whole class anyway to dismiss them.

Taiyang walked over to his team, all in uniform except him himself, and they left the exhibition practice classroom. Taiyang lamented how he'd been closer than ever, and Raven told him what her and Qrow had said about knocking Goodwitch out, which made him laugh. Taiyang dipped his head slightly and Raven kissed the corner of his mouth. Qrow retched theatrically and looked at Summer, rolling his eyes. Summer rolled hers in response, but her silver eyes glittered with something sad as she broke Qrow's eye contact and looked at the floor.

"You have an impressively strong teammate," a voice said from right next to Qrow. He jumped, hard, and made a noise of shock, anger, and stupidity.

"Holy fuck!" Qrow yelled as he span to see who'd crept up on him, and Summer giggled. He found himself looking up at Professor Ozpin, and he grinned sheepishly. Ozpin was smiling gently, although he did raise his eyebrows.

"I didn't realise the student rules had been changed to allow swearing in the hallways," he said mildly.

"Hey, I'm not responsible for my actions if people creep up on me. You coulda been a Grimm, for all I goddamn knew," Qrow said. Raven and Taiyang had stopped walking, though a few metres down the corridor, arms linked together. Summer was still laughing at Qrow's shock.

"Well," Ozpin replied, leaning on his cane, "I hereby amend the rules to say if a Grimm ever does creep up on you outside Room 42, you have full permission to curse as much as you feel you must." Qrow had the distinct feeling he was being teased, and sucked his teeth in amused annoyance. Ozpin continued:

"I was wondering if you - all of you - could accompany me to my office. Although, Mr Xiao Long, if you're particularly exhausted, it could wait a few hours?" Taiyang shook his head.

"I'm cool now, so long as you're not going to attack us or anything," Tai said. Ozpin smiled.

"It isn't part of the plan, no." Raven huffed at Ozpin’s answer.

"You're the first to remind us, plans change." Ozpin inclined his head to her and nodded.

"Indeed. Although, I doubt this one will change to the point where I am forced to attack my students," and he continued walking, STRQ following alongside him.

Qrow was close enough to Ozpin in the lift to his office that he could smell his headmaster’s cologne, and he tried to breath as deeply as he could, as quietly as he could. Suddenly there was a sharp pain in his foot – he looked down, and Raven was grinding her boot down onto his toes, and when he met her eyes, she smirked. Dammit. Awkward. He said nothing, and tried to quit the deep breathing, but he was painfully aware of his breaths now, and he knew it’d be a few seconds until his brain took over on autopilot again. The lift stopped and opened, and the five of them entered into the office at the top of the tower, The Long Memory tapping against the polished floor as Ozpin walked to behind his desk. The students stood in a line in front of it in their usual order, Summer at one end, Qrow at the other, Tai and Raven in the middle, their arms still linked.

“Now. Would you all put your scrolls on my desk, please?” Professor Ozpin asked. They all complied, and Ozpin placed his own scroll down. He tapped some buttons that appeared on the surface of the desk and the windows of the office became translucent black, filtering out the glare from the late afternoon sun, and a large projection appeared above the desk, although all it was was a large blue rectangle.

“It is no great secret that Team STRQ are likely Beacon’s best hope in the upcoming Vytal Festival Tournament,” Ozpin said with a slight smile. “This is not favouritism; it is simple fact. Even your classmates say this.” Summer giggled.

“Thank you, Sir!” she said. Ozpin made a non-committal hand gesture.

“Transferring to your scrolls now are some combat videos of many of the Teams from the other academies who you may be competing against. There are dozens, and I don’t expect you to watch them all, but the option is there if you want to. Naturally, the other Headmasters have given combat videos to their Teams, too. The other Beacon students are welcome to come and get them from me if they so desire, but I thought I’d take the initiative to give them to you four directly.” Qrow huffed a laugh, and pulled his backpack from his shoulder, dropping it to the floor in front of him. He crouched, retrieved his water bottle (stainless steel, vacuum-insulated and scratched and dented to hell) and stood back up.

“Kind of ya, Sir,” he said, and Ozpin nodded at him, smiling somewhat. “But, what are you going to show us specifically on the big screen?” Qrow asked and then drank from his bottle. Raven rolled her eyes at him, although nobody saw.

“There will be two exhibition fights at the beginning of the tournament, two four-on-fours, one team from each of the academies. This year, Beacon has drawn Atlas, and I took the liberty of nominating you to be our exhibition team. I would like to specifically show you a combat video of the team from Atlas you will be facing-”

“Because you just _know_ Feldgrau has made a whole-ass PowerPoint presentation about us to show to his team of mindless drones,” Raven said. Qrow snorted in amusement.

“ _Professor_ Feldgrau, Miss Branwen. But the sentiment is correct, yes. He will have analysed any material he can get of you and will relay that to the Atlesian exhibition team.” Ozpin leaned down to tap his scroll, and the projection became a photograph of four students in the uniform of Atlas academy.

“This,” Ozpin said, and Qrow noticed the way he sounded, the way he always sounded when he spoke something he’d been planning for a while, and it made Qrow smile, “is Team ‘Jarrah’, J-R-R-H. They are seniors at Atlas Academy, and all four are poised to become professional Huntsmen in the Atlesian military. I wouldn’t be surprised if they became high-ranking Specialists, or even Ace Operatives.” Summer then answered the question Tai was going to ask before he asked it:

“The Ace Ops… the best of the best, right? Atlas’s most skilled fighters. Half a dozen out of thousands of soldiers.” Professor Ozpin smiled.

“Indeed, Miss Rose. They are the crème de la crème of the military, and these students are likely to be among them in a few years. I’d like you to be as prepared for them as they will be for you.” And so, Ozpin went through each of the students who made up Team JRRH.

**‘Hayden Mulberry** , blind in both eyes, 6’1” and built like a sprinter. His weapons, **Attachment and Security** , are a pair of hook swords which allow him to snag his opponent and keep them close, excellent given he can’t see them, and sharp enough to cleave flesh like paper. His Semblance, **Depth of Field** , which creates an image in his head of his surroundings and gives him the knowledge of what’s moving around him, how fast it’s going, and the densities of different objects, is something he has honed since he was officially labelled a ‘total’, or more scientifically having ‘No Light Perception’, after surgery that had a chance of saving his vision at age ten. His major weakness is, expectedly, his blindness – while his Semblance does show him what his surroundings are like, unless he constantly activates it and drains his Aura, he misses changes in the battlefield outside of the fight he’s directly engaged in, so he is more vulnerable than most to surprise attacks from his enemies’ allies.’

 **‘Rhys Llwytgoch** , a squirrel Faunus from Mantle, 5’11” and covered in burn scars. His weapon, **Hiraeth** , a strong solid quarterstaff that will knock you for six if it makes contact with your head and rumoured to be totally indestructible, is apparently the work of an ancient family of master craftsmen who live deep in the tundra of Solitas. His Semblance, **Dadelfennu** , allows him to manipulate his immediate environment and intensify its natural disposition to erode, rot or decay, meaning he could walk through a meadow and have the grass die at his feet, or stand near a boulder and accelerate its breakdown into thousands of pebbles. His major weakness seems to be his severe phobia of heat and fire, meaning if his enemies can utilise this in any way, at best it will cause his attitude to become more hasty and careless, and at worst could completely paralyse him with fear, although of course he is receiving therapy through the Academy to try and resolve this.’

 **‘Russet Atkinson** , the only girl, 5’8” and a spectacular gymnast. Her weapon, **Flourish** , a garrote vil with space for Dust vials to be inserted in the handles, thus imbuing the whole wire with her chosen elemental magic, is often seen being used as a skipping rope or a gymnastics ribbon, which makes it rather unexpected when it catches around your neck and chokes away your Aura. Her Semblance, **Unsinkable** , makes her and one thing she is touching behave as if it is 20kg lighter than it actually is, which lends itself well to her incredible movements and allows her to lift objects that are much heavier than you would expect her to be able to. Her major weakness is her lack of actual, tangible strength, as because she is devoted to her cardio and staying as skinny and lithe as possible, instead using her Semblance to manipulate weight, she can easily be overpowered in hand-to-hand so long as her opponent manages to overcome the odd sensation of suddenly losing 20kg… assuming you haven’t been sneaked up on and garrotted before you can hit her.’

 **‘James Ironwood** , JRRH’s leader, 6’6” and broad as an ox. His weapons, **Habeas Corpus and Due Process** , beautiful twin revolvers that can, respectively, launch him through the air with Gravity Dust, totally changing the dynamic of whatever battle he’s in, and the other, one-shot a Sabyr Grimm with the ease of putting down an injured horse, and thus shatter the Aura of even an excellent fighter in a few well-placed shots, if you give him the chance. His Semblance, **Procedural Retention** , lets him perfectly mimic any physical movements he sees, meaning he can change fighting style from judo to wing chun in a heartbeat, although if he decides he wants a fight to end, his brutally skilled krav maga will do that for him. His major weakness is a good question, since honestly, he is the leader of JRRH for good reason, and is an incredibly skilled Huntsman-in-training who, unfortunately for you, does not display any obvious weaknesses.’

“So your best advice for their leader is…?” asked Taiyang. Professor Ozpin gave him a tired smile.

“Hit him harder than he hits you, Mr Xiao Long.” Raven rolled her eyes. Summer was gazing intently at the repeating hologram of James Ironwood landing an impossibly perfect shot on a classmate in a training match. Qrow took another swig from his water bottle. Almost empty. He needed to go back to the dorm.

“You didn’t consider asking us before, y’know, using us as your display students?” Qrow asked Ozpin, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

“Would you have said no?” Ozpin asked, his gaze on Qrow. Qrow shrugged.

“Maybe I would’ve,” he replied, and lifted his backpack back over a shoulder, “but I guess it would’ve come down to Summer anyway. Can we go? I have a headache.” Ozpin nodded.

“Of course. Do return if you have any questions at all about the tournament, hmm?” Qrow drained the last of his drink, and felt Ozpin watch him do so. He got the distinct feeling the Professor knew what was in the bottle.

Back in the dorm, Qrow threw down his bag and dragged the suitcase below his bed into some space. Taiyang was stood in the doorway, not wanting to get their bedroom dusty, and Raven was digging out clean clothes for him to take to the showers. Summer sat on her bed, and was typing something on her scroll. Raven pointedly ignored her brother as he took a bottle of vodka from the suitcase, and poured a few shots worth into his water bottle. He put the alcohol away back under his bed and crossed to the shelves by the door, retrieving a sachet of cherry pomegranate Crystal Light which he also dumped into the bottle. Taiyang was watching him, expression difficult to read, although Qrow’s best guess was that it was some kind of disapproval. Raven carried Taiyang’s clean clothes and a towel over to him, and he took them gratefully before heading off to have a shower. Qrow went out into the corridor to fill the rest of his bottle from the water fountain, and Raven held the door open for him to return. He nodded at her in thanks when he came back, and lay down on his bed, kicking his shoes off in the vague direction of the door. He took a gulp of his drink – too sweet, too strong, exactly what he’d been wanting.

“Reckon we’ll win against JRRH, then?” Summer asked her teammates.

“We stand a good chance,” answered Raven, “but it won’t exactly be easy. Losing isn’t really an option, though, is it?”

“Nah,” Qrow agreed, “we’d never live it down. Course, I bet they’ve had this exact same conversation about us. Someone’s gonna have to lose.”

“I just hope it’s them,” Summer said, and she maximised her scroll, watching a video of Russet Atkinson completing a timed parkour run around an Atlas training arena.

After dinner that night, Summer, Raven and Taiyang had gone to the room of some of their friends, but Qrow decided he wanted some fresh air and split off from them. He was on one of the balconies of the academy, several floors up, gazing out at the dark sky, bright, shattered moon, and the lights coming from Vale. He couldn’t see the Beacon tower from where he was, but he wondered about it none the less. Was the headmaster up there working? Qrow liked Professor Ozpin’s office, liked how it was decorated, how it was warm despite all the glass and metal. He’d slept in it a few times, times Ozpin had found him too drunk and angry to send him back to be around his teammates, although his memories tended to have large gaps regarding nights like that. Qrow had a feeling there was much more to Ozpin than anyone knew, even with the way he was more open to STRQ than many of the other students, but at least for now, Qrow was still one of his pupils (even though he was nearly 22), and he knew enough of the man to know he wouldn’t let that kind of relationship start. Despite being totally alone, Qrow felt a mild embarrassment as he thought about Ozpin like that.

Qrow scowled as familiar insecurities and uncertainties caused an uncomfortable twist in his stomach. He drank from the bottle in his hand, another round of the over-sweetened vodka concoction. His head just wouldn’t shut up, insidious whispers in his mind-

_‘you like him only because he is an adult who has shown you kindness’_

_‘craving attention and approval like a stupid little boy, like a mistrained dog’_

_‘you came here to learn to kill better and now you’re having delusions about being some hero’_

_‘everything around you will come crashing down and it will be all your fault’_

“Shut _up_ ,” he growled out loud at himself, and he put his bottle down on the stone railing to free up his hands. He looked down as he twisted his hips somewhat awkwardly to make it possible to actually get into the pocket of his super-skinny jeans, and tugged out a metal cigarette case and a lighter, one he’d built himself after running out of things to do with Harbinger. It had a clockwork, steampunk theme going for it, brushed gold-coloured steel with glass windows showing off tiny gears on the inside, and used Fire Dust to ignite, which was frankly unnecessary but looked very cool. He only had four cigarettes left, and he didn’t actually think he had any under his bed, but that was a problem for future Qrow, he thought to himself as he took one from the case and lit it. Qrow’s habits meant he was walking through a slight grey area with regard to the rules at the Academy: given he was of legal age to drink and smoke, they couldn’t actually make him stop, but there were rules about ‘proper conduct’ and ‘hazardous behaviour’ which he was definitely pushing the limits of. For what it was worth, though, he’d never actually been in trouble with Professor Ozpin – rather, his teacher treated the addictions as a long-term problem that could take years of therapy and medication to fix.

Brothers, he was fucked up. The door behind him, the one from the corridor that led out onto the balcony, opened with a clicking sound, and Summer stepped out into the night air.

“Thought I’d find you out here,” she said, walking over and squeezing Qrow’s arm in greeting. He offered her his cigarette, but she shook her head.

“This is genuinely the first place you tried?”

“No, I tried the south balcony first. Second time lucky. How much have you had?” Summer asked. Qrow gave a brief, sardonic laugh.

“Not enough, I don’t think.” He picked up his bottle and drank from it, as if to illustrate his point. He offered her the bottle, too, and she did take it, and had a very small sip. She pulled a face.

“Congratulations, Qrow, you’ve somehow managed to make Crystal Light even worse.”

“Hey, it’s actually pretty nice!”

“It’s like someone with no taste buds tried to invent Kool-Aid but all they had was a bag of aspartame and freeze-dried fruit from 50 years ago. And they mixed it in a bucket used for transporting methylated spirits.” He looked down at her, and she pouted before laughing.

“How the fuck do you come up with shit like that?”

“Creative talent!”

“Yeah, right,” he said and she punched his arm playfully. The pair stood in silence for a while, looking out across the grounds of Beacon, while Qrow smoked and sipped at his drink. When he was done with the smoke, he crushed the cigarette against the stone railing to extinguish it. One more drink from his bottle finished that too.

“Tai and Raven still in Honey’s dorm?” Qrow asked. Summer nodded, and bit her lip.

“They were getting a bit… well, Honey got Tai to feel her chest and guess if her boobs were bigger or smaller than Raven’s. And so then he had to feel up Raven, too, of course.”

“Of course.”

“So I decided I’d rather come and stand with you for a bit, before I was asked about the size of my boobs.”

“Pretty sure out of the people in that room, Taiyang probably has the biggest tits,” and Summer giggled at him, “genuinely, pecs for days on that guy.”

Summer and Qrow, several years ago, had found their way into a never-discussed-but-mutually-understood arrangement where they would stand somewhere deserted every few nights and chat about whatever was weighing on their hearts at the time, with no expectations of anything, no judgement, and the trust that they wouldn’t bring anything they said up outside of the ‘sessions’ they shared. Summer’s frequent topics were her worries about the Team, her desperate anxiety, about her leadership, and her relationship with Taiyang, and recently, the slight tension that seemed to have arisen between her and Raven, largely because of Taiyang.

“My sister’s never been a very easy person to get along with,” Qrow said, “but the fact she can still Kindred Link to you proves she doesn’t hate you or anything.”

“I know. I just don’t want to wreck anything between her and Tai, I don’t want to cause any conflict at all, really.”

Qrow’s frequent topics were his unsure thoughts, his bad habits, his lack of clarity over what his future would be, his difficult relationship with his tribe, and recently, Ozpin. Summer didn’t judge him for that (or if she did, she was damn good at hiding it).

“Honestly, it isn’t very long at all until we graduate, and then you’ll be able to talk to him without the relationship being restricted because of the teacher thing. He definitely already respects us all as adults, I guess his hands are just tied.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I just owe him a lot already, I guess, and I don’t know, it’s kind of a difficult situation.” Qrow paused after speaking and then went to sip from his bottle, before remembering it was empty. He wasn’t drunk, not really, but he wasn’t sober either. He just felt a little lighter, a little less present. Summer hugged her teammate.

“Wanna go back inside? I’m getting cold,” Qrow said. Summer nodded in agreement, and they headed back to their dorm, only to find Honey and her boyfriend, Keegan, stood outside it. Keegan grasped Qrow’s hand and then bumped their chests together in greeting.

“’sup, birdie?” Keegan asked, and then grinned at Summer, “’sup, petal?” and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

“All good?” Qrow asked. “Why are you guarding our room?” Honey laughed slightly.

“Just here to give you a heads up. Raven and Tai decided they’d capitalise on the fact you two were outside chilling, if you catch our drift.” Summer tutted and Qrow made a noise of disgust.

“Yeah, and we figured you wouldn’t wanna walk in on your sister-slash-teammate getting banged,” Keegan said, and Qrow visibly cringed at the sentence.

“She can do what she wants, but I don’t wanna think about it,” Qrow said.

“Well, thank you, I guess,” Summer said, sounding moderately amused, “we’ll go somewhere else for a little while. We could head down to the library and use the big Hard-Light projector to look at some more of the stuff for the Festival?” Qrow nodded, but then added:

“I wanted another drink, though, but all my shit’s in that goddamn room.”

“I can hook you up, if you want,” Keegan said, and Honey slapped at her boyfriend’s arm. “Relax, we’ll buy some more. You didn’t wanna drink tonight, did you?”

“Guess not. We’ve got half a bottle of whiskey you can have for half the price I paid for it,” Honey said, and Qrow walked down the corridor with her to her team’s dorm, tugging his wallet from his back pocket. He kept a foot in the door while she retrieved the liquor and handed her some Lien when she emerged with it. He took it and decanted it into his water bottle – it was ever-so-slightly too much, so he drank the last little bit from the whiskey bottle itself.

“Thanks, guys,” Qrow said, and Keegan gave him a thumbs-up. “C’mon, Summer, let’s roll. The library calls.”

“Give me the empty bottle, I’ll throw it out,” Honey said, and Qrow gratefully handed her the glass before Summer caught up with him and they headed off together.

Summer didn’t say anything to Qrow on the walk to the library, and he sipped frequently from his bottle mostly for something to do with his hands. It was decent enough stuff, not that he really cared all that much. The library was an amazing set of rooms, thousands and thousands of books, and it was largely empty save for a few lingering students finishing up assignments. The big clock on the wall read about five past nine, and given the time, the librarian’s desk was empty. The pair walked through to the back where the group workrooms were, and the one they wanted in the centre, with the biggest projector, displayed that it wasn’t booked on the screen outside, although the lights in it were on, diffusing out through the frosted glass walls. Summer tapped her scroll on the reader and pulled the door open. It was indeed empty of people, but there was a pile of books on the table, alongside a pad of paper with various squiggles, that may or may not have been writing, on the topmost sheet.

“Wonder whose stuff it is?” Qrow asked, and Summer hummed lightly in response. She peered down at the paper.

“Well, I don’t think I recognise the writing. These books look pretty complicated, so I’m guessing an older student. Probably someone in our year.” Qrow swallowed the sip of his drink he’d taken and smirked at Summer.

“Any other deductions, Miss Marple?”

“Uh, they aren’t in here now. But all their stuff is here, so they’re probably coming back. Probably gone to the bathroom or something.”

“At any rate, they aren’t actually using the projector, so we’ll just kick them out into one of the other rooms. We need this one. We’re Team STRQ, pretty much famous at this school. I’m like some sort of God to the first-years, y’know.” The frosted glass door to the room began to open. Qrow began to turn to look at whoever was coming in. “Hey, dork studying in here, I need the good proje- shit, sorry Sir.” Summer laughed and Qrow grinned awkwardly as Professor Port looked at him.

“Language, Mr Branwen. Good evening to you too, Miss Rose.”

“Evening, Sir. Would you mind terribly if me and Qrow could have this room for the projector? We’re starting to prepare for the exhibition fight at the Vytal Festival.” Professor Port smiled at her.

“Ah, of course! Congratulations to your team, actually, that Professor Ozpin chose you to represent us. I’m very much looking forward to watching your matches, as I’m sure there will be more than one,” and he winked. He picked up his paper and the pen he’d been using, and Qrow set his bottle on the table before picking up the stack of books Port had brought in here. Summer held the door open and Qrow and Port moved the teacher’s things into the study room next door – it had a projector too, yes, but it wasn’t the same spec as the one in the main room.

“Thanks, Sir,” Qrow said, and Port waved his hand a bit.

“No trouble at all, my boy. I hope your preparations go well. If – when – your team does advance in the main Tournament, which of you will go into the doubles round?” Qrow shrugged.

“Probably Taiyang and Raven. And then probably Tai in the singles.” Port nodded.

“Well, let me know if you need any help with anything, yes? Don’t let me keep you.” Qrow thanked him again, and went back to Summer, who had started up the big projector and dimmed the lights in the room.

“So,” she said as Qrow grabbed his bottle and drank from it, “what do you want to watch?”

They’d settled on watching the videos they had of Team JRRH, since that would be the first fight, and since they couldn’t know at all which of the other dozens of teams they could end up against. There was clearly a reason Professor Feldgrau had chosen this team to represent Atlas Academy – they were good, very good indeed. They had a great team connection, some brilliant combination attacks, but were all very skilled individually. Qrow was getting through the liquor rather quickly, largely because he was just sipping at it absently and near-constantly as he focused on the opponents they’d face in a few months’ time. The team’s leader, James Ironwood, looked particularly dangerous, and Professor Ozpin’s words about his lack of an obvious weakness hadn’t particularly filled Qrow with confidence.

“Qrow?” Shit, Summer had said something to him. He’d not heard.

“Sorry, sorry, what?” The words felt a little unwieldy in his mouth.

“First, maybe ease off the bottle a little, okay? And I said, do you reckon that James’s weakness might be his team? Like, watch him, he’s very much in control of them. He’s coming close to micromanagement, to be honest.”

“Think he’s a control freak?”

“Maybe. He’s from Atlas, set to go into the military, his Semblance is named ‘Procedural Retention’, and his guns are named after laws and legal rights.”

“Put like that, how big do you reckon the stick in his ass must be?” Summer laughed. “But I get you. He’s the kind who likes to know what’s going on in a battle. We can use that.”

“You,” she said, pausing the video, “could _definitely_ use that. Your Semblance could shake him.” Qrow sighed, and took a big gulp of whiskey. He made a face at the burn. Summer watched him, looking a little unimpressed.

“Yay. Misfortune saves the day by ruining it.”

“You sound so enthusiastic, it’s truly great to hear,” Summer said drily, and resumed the video.

Qrow blinked. He was staring at his hands. Why was he doing that? He looked up, and the video had skipped a few minutes. Or maybe he’d been looking at his hands for a while. Was he drunk? Oh, yeah, he was kinda drunk. Makes sense, he thought. He took a sip from his bottle. He needed to act sober in front of Summer, and smiled a knowing smile for his own benefit. He could play it cool.

“Come on,” Summer said, “it’s ten to ten and Raven just texted to ask where we are.” She flipped the main light back on and Qrow winced at the sudden brightness. Summer turned off the projector and grabbed her scroll from the table, and pulled open the door, holding it for Qrow. He walked out, thinking about his steps carefully so he didn’t look drunk. He wasn’t even that drunk, he thought – if he was _that_ drunk, he wouldn’t even be thinking this through, would he?

He felt Summer link arms with him, and they were in the courtyard, the night air cold. He drank from his bottle. Very warm, whiskey, he thought. Summer looked at him. Oh, maybe he’d said it out loud.

He was lying on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, having a conversation with Raven but he didn’t actually know what he was talking about, really. She sounded entertained. Summer came over to him and started unbuttoning his shirt. He laughed loudly.

“S’posed to buy me dinner first, petals,” he said, laughing again. Summer didn’t reply, or if she did, he didn’t hear it. He drank from his bottle, which didn’t have much left in it.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, he was definitely gonna throw up. He stumbled out of STRQ’s dorm room and stumbled more down the dimly-lit hall, throwing the door to the male senior bathroom open and essentially falling into a stall, throwing up his half-digested evening meal and rather a lot of acidic liquid into the toilet bowl, gasping between heaves and tears falling fast from his eyes.

“Brothers fuck,” he choked out and spat the remaining chyme from his mouth before flushing the mess he’d made away. He laughed a little and rose unsteadily to his feet, walking over to one of the sinks and letting cold water run into his cupped hands. He rinsed out his mouth as best he could, looking at himself in the mirror. He felt a little less hazy, a little bit more lucid, as he looked into his reflection’s eyes. He was pale and sweaty.

Taiyang told him to shut up again in the dark dorm room, and Qrow laughed and flipped onto his other side.

Qrow woke to the piercing noise of Summer’s alarm and wanted nothing more in that second than to be shot in the head. He felt nauseous, and his head was killing him, and he ached, too. He looked down at himself. Shirtless, but he’d slept in his black jeans. He groaned. His mouth tasted like sick. He closed his eyes.

“You look like hell,” Raven said, and he slowly opened his eyes again to look at her. She dropped a small box onto his chest and held out a plastic bottle of water. He took it from her, and sat up. His stomach threatened to revolt, but he kept himself together and popped two of the pills from their blister packs with shaky hands.

“Thanks,” he said. His voice was grating. Raven shrugged, and walked back over to her bed. He took the painkillers – mixed pills of aspirin, paracetamol and caffeine – and sipped at the water. He caught Summer’s eye and she smiled at him gently. He asked her what class they had first, and she told him history, straight after breakfast, which she recommended he skip so he could take his time in the shower, and she’d bring him some food to the class afterwards. He agreed, and slowly, carefully dragged himself up, grabbing his uniform from where he’d abandoned it yesterday afternoon and a towel from the pile at the end of his bed. He said hi to some of his friends who were in the bathroom too, but relatively soon, he was the only person in there as everyone else went down for breakfast. He sat down awkwardly on the tiled floor and let the water run over him, breathing carefully and deliberately.

Qrow’s fingertips were getting a little wrinkly when he sighed and hauled himself up, shutting off the water and wrapping himself in a towel. He stared at his vague reflection in the steamed-up mirror while he rubbed himself dry, but got impatient and pulled on his boxers, shirt and trousers while he was still damp. Back in STRQ’s dorm room, he lay down on Raven’s bed, breathing in the familiar smell of her hair from her pillow. Qrow started a lot more days than was even remotely healthy like this, and he knew it was an issue, but he couldn’t help it, he really couldn’t. Besides, he almost always still managed to get up and go to class, so it wasn’t the end of the world. And he definitely had fun while drunk. Even if it was taking more and more alcohol to actually get drunk, which was another issue he was inclined to ignore. He lay there, still and silent, for as long as he could.

Looking up at the clock above the door, Qrow sighed, and stood up a little shakily before going to throw his books into his bag. His water bottle was lying next to his backpack on the floor, and he picked it up. He shook it, and it was almost empty, just a small amount of liquid left in it. He paused, his mind thinking a lot of different things, but ultimately, he knew what he was going to do. A feeling of guilt washed over him as he unscrewed the lid and swallowed the remaining whiskey from the bottle. Now empty, he resealed the bottle and dropped it into his backpack along with the half-empty bottle of water Raven had given him. Finally, he hefted his bag onto his shoulders, grabbed his scroll from his bedside table, and headed down to the lecture theatre, facing up to another day of just getting by. He wondered how long it was until he could safely take more painkillers.


	3. ‘I’m out there busting my butt on secret missions, what do you do all day?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: I am aware that there is literally no furniture in Ozpin’s office, and that his desk doesn’t even have drawers. That’s some impractical bullshit, so there’s more furniture in his office in ALL my stories than there is in canon. This includes, but is not limited to, some more chairs, drawers in the desk, and occasionally a sofa. Maybe some bookcases. I also enjoy Shannon’s agreement of Ozpin as ‘megaqueer’. What a legend.

Pain radiated through Qrow’s hand and up his arm, blood welling up from cuts on his knuckles, and he roared in anguish as he smashed his fist into the steel section of wall again and again. There was a sickening cracking noise and Qrow roared again, the noise ripping itself violently from his throat, and he cradled his now-broken hand in his good one. He could barely see through tears, and he keened like a wounded animal. Arms wrapped around him and pulled him in close, although leaving space for his broken hand between them, and Qrow rested his forehead on Ozpin’s shoulder and let out a choked sob. Ozpin simply held him for a few minutes before letting him go and leading him with a hand between Qrow’s shoulder blades over to the desk. Gently, Ozpin pushed Qrow down into the closest chair and leant against the desk himself. He watched Qrow in silence, and his heart ached for him. Qrow was staring blankly at his injured hand in his lap. Blood had gotten on his clothes. Ozpin tapped out a message on his scroll, but then put it back down. Neither of them did or said anything for a minute or so, but then Qrow pulled out his flask and drank from it.

The lift opened and Glynda stepped into the office, heels clicking on the floor as she crossed to where the two men were. She put the shoebox-sized plastic basket onto Ozpin’s desk, and he nodded gratefully at her. The basket contained medical supplies, and Ozpin opened the sterile packaging of a pair of single-use latex gloves.

“No use us both getting covered in blood, hmm?” he said to Qrow gently. Qrow made no sign of acknowledgement. The next packet opened was that of an antiseptic wipe. Ozpin knelt down next to where Qrow was sat and very carefully lifted Qrow’s injured hand up, and as softly as possible wiped over it. Glynda passed Ozpin a clean wipe when the first one was covered in blood, and then another one after that, until Qrow’s hand was clean. It was already beginning to bruise. Qrow took another drink from his flask.

Ozpin sighed. “This part will hurt the most, Qrow. I’m sorry.” Qrow shook his head, but said nothing. Glynda took an ice pack from the basket and cracked it, while Ozpin, as carefully as he possibly could, eased the rings off of Qrow’s index and ring fingers and dropped them into his own blazer pocket. Qrow whimpered softly in pain. Ozpin gently probed Qrow’s entire hand, checking what parts were broken. Both of the fingers that had had his rings on had broken proximal phalanges, and at least one and likely more of his metacarpals were broken too, given the pain it caused.

“I’ll tape your fingers straight but we needn’t splint your hand, so long as you keep it still. We can take you down to the infirmary later, when you’re ready.” Qrow made a quiet noise of agreement. Glynda passed Ozpin some soft gauze, and he put it between Qrow’s injured fingers and the uninjured ones next to them, before taking the medical tape and buddy taping Qrow’s index and middle fingers, and ring and pinky fingers. Finally, Ozpin stood and took the now-cold ice pack from the desk and wrapped it in a cloth, before handing it to Qrow. Qrow balanced the ice pack on the arm of the chair, before using his good hand to manoeuvre his broken one to rest on top of it. He took another drink. Ozpin pulled off the gloves.

“Thank you, Glynda,” Ozpin said. She shook her head lightly.

“You’re welcome, naturally. Qrow, is there anything I can get for you? Water, tea, anything?” Qrow looked up at her, and for a second, both Glynda and Ozpin saw the broken 17-year-old who had sat in this office last decade and confessed he had killed people, but then Qrow sniffed and shook his head in the present. He drank from his flask. He wasn’t even putting the cap on, let alone putting the flask away, between drinks.

“Alright. Call me if you need anything, Ozpin, yes?”

“I shall. Thank you.”

“I’ll leave you be.”

“Wait,” Qrow croaked out, “tell me something. Has Leonardo been told? The others?”

“I haven’t told him, no,” Glynda said, but Ozpin nodded.

“I have, albeit very briefly. I simply said to the other Headmasters that Raven is compromised, and not to engage with her, and that I would explain in more detail at a later date.”

“Good to know,” Glynda said, and she nodded at the two men before walking to the lift and leaving the office.

Ozpin went back to leaning on the desk in front of Qrow. Qrow wasn’t crying any more, and he was back to staring blankly. Qrow was very obviously devastated, in several ways, but all stemming from the same event. Ozpin hated seeing him like this, hated seeing Qrow so broken and torn apart.

Raven was gone. Raven had left them. She had abandoned her job. She had abandoned her friends. She had abandoned her brother. She had abandoned her husband. She had abandoned her daughter. All of them. She’d gone back to Anima, back to the tribe her and Qrow had grown up in, and Qrow had refused to go back to with her. In her eyes, he’d abandoned her, he’d abandoned their family. He’d said the tribe had never been his family. She’d replied that he’d never been hers. She’d condemned Ozpin, and condemned all those who trusted him. Which meant Qrow, Summer and Tai. She condemned them.

The fighting could probably be heard all over Patch. And then she’d fled, taking almost nothing – with the exception of half of the money her and Tai had – with her. Qrow had desperately texted Ozpin not to trust her, that Raven was leaving, and then he’d hugged Summer, hugged Tai, kissed Yang, and flown as fast as he goddamn could to Beacon. The sun had just set by the time he’d arrived, and he’d come straight up to Ozpin’s office, his breathing impossibly fast and hard, exhausted, and practically collapsed into Ozpin’s arms and _screamed_. He’d screamed in anger and sorrow and self-hatred, and then explained through choking breaths that Raven was gone, gone back to be a murderer and what she’d said about Ozpin himself and he’d worked himself up so, so terribly. He’d smashed both of the glasses on Ozpin’s desk, one by his Semblance going crazy in his frenzy, and one that he’d picked up and thrown against one of the windows. And then he’d started punching a metal section of wall between two of the windows, and then his hand had broken.

And now they were here. Qrow lifted his head and looked at Ozpin. He drank the last of the alcohol in his flask, put it on the desk and stood up. He stepped forward, closing the distance between himself and Oz, and embraced him, albeit leaving his injured hand at his side, resting his head on Oz’s shoulder. Ozpin held him back, held him tight. Oz pressed his lips against the side of Qrow’s head, kissing him through his wind-whipped hair. He rubbed slow, small circles onto Qrow’s back with his right hand.

“I’m sorry,” Qrow said, his voice strained and hurt. Ozpin shook his head minutely. Qrow felt the movement.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Ozpin replied, his voice soft and ever-so-slightly muffled in Qrow’s hair.

“I should have done better. I should have known she was close to the edge. And you… your magic, you don’t have much left and now more of it is just lost and-”

“Qrow. Qrow, shush. Please. You are not responsible for the choices of anyone but yourself. It has never been, and will never be, your responsibility to know what anybody with our knowledge is planning to do, be that abandon us or even betray us. And the state of my magic is not your concern to have.” Qrow hiccupped, and pulled away from Ozpin. The two kept eye contact.

“I feel so fucking awful, Oz. I’m so fucking angry. And I’m upset. I hate being upset. Raven’s chosen to be a murdering tribal bitch instead of staying with her _husband_ and her _daughter_.”

“And her choice, whilst we can rage against it as much as we like, is ultimately hers to make. That is all I can reassure you with. I have had people whom I trusted dearly turn their backs on me before, and life continues.” Qrow made a noise of frustration.

“You, you’ve had lives with a family.” Ozpin said nothing. “It’s your fucking ex-wife we’re trying to kill off. But the lives you’ve lived since, you’ve had other wives, and husbands, and kids. You loved them.”

“I did.”

“Raven has left her own _baby_.”

“She has.”

“And the shit she said about you. The shit she said about you, Oz.”

“I’m sure I’ve heard it all before.” Qrow growled, low in his throat. Then he was silent for a second. Then:

“I’ll fucking kill her.” Ozpin closed his eyes, and sighed.

“Qrow-”

“If she dares to fucking show up here, or if we find out she’s gone to Salem’s side, I will fucking kill her.”

Qrow stormed around to the other side of Ozpin’s desk and pulled open the largest drawer, the one on the bottom left, and retrieved two lowball glasses (replacing the ones he’d destroyed). His fingers played over the tops of a few different bottles before he chose the unopened kirsch, and he kicked the drawer shut before pouring out the spirit into the two glasses. Ozpin watched; that kirsch was expensive. Not that he minded, he just wondered if Qrow realised. Qrow walked back around to the other side of the desk and passed Ozpin one of the drinks, before lifting his own glass, draining it, and pouring out another. He then stood his hip flask up and decanted kirsch into it until it was full, shockingly accurate given he only had one working hand, before putting the cap on and sliding the whole thing back into his pocket. The second glass of drink, though, he didn’t down immediately, and he instead sat back in the chair he’d started in, resting his broken hand back down onto the ice pack. He sipped at the drink. Ozpin sighed softly.

“Qrow, come here,” he said, and walked over to the sofa. Qrow nodded and mouthed ‘okay’, before standing back up and doing as Ozpin said. Oz sat down at one end, and he tapped his thighs. Qrow nodded again, handed Oz his glass, and lay down on his left side, facing the room, putting his head in Oz’s lap. Ozpin placed the two drinks on the side table, threaded one hand into Qrow’s hair and rested the other on Qrow’s shoulder.

“Your anger is quite the sight to behold, my dear Qrow,” Ozpin said. Qrow huffed something that was close to a laugh. He’d calmed somewhat.

“I’m dumb when I’m angry. I break shit. Broke your drinking glasses.”

“And your own bones.”

“And those, yeah. Maybe more important than some drinking glasses.”

“Surely your hand must hurt?”

“Yeah. But your school doctor can fix it?”

“That she can. I appreciate you would like some privacy at the moment, but it would be good to take you to her sooner rather than later. I mean, for one, she’ll go to bed at some point.”

“Mmm. In a minute. Finish this drink, and then you can take me. Speaking of…?” Qrow twisted his head to look up at Oz. Ozpin nodded and retrieved Qrow’s glass from the table, as Qrow shifted enough that he could pull his left arm out from underneath him to take the glass. It was a little awkward to sip from with his head in Oz’s lap, but he managed. Ozpin went back to gently carding through Qrow’s hair, occasionally scratching at Qrow’s scalp.

Ozpin actually finished his glass of kirsch before Qrow finished his, and Qrow, seeing this, quickly swallowed the last of his own and sat up. Ozpin went and retrieved The Long Memory from where it was sat on his desk, and the two men then left the office, Qrow picking up Harbinger from where it rested by the door and securing it on his back, albeit not as smoothly as normal, since he did it with his other hand. In the lift down together, Qrow let his head rest on Oz’s shoulder, and Ozpin kissed the top of his head. They walked across the courtyard together – there were still some students outside at this time, as it was still fairly early evening, and their dinner would be in about twenty minutes. Several greeted their headmaster, and Qrow smiled a little at the fact that Oz was as popular with the kids as ever. Qrow knew exactly where the medical wing of the school was, having spent a fair amount of time in it as a student, but he still allowed Ozpin to take the lead and guide him through the corridors. There were two students in the medical wing when Qrow and Oz walked in – a young-looking girl asleep in a bed, an IV drip giving her something, and an older-looking boy, lying on his front, with the doctor’s hands on his black and white striped tail, which had flecks of blood on it. She moved one of her hands down his tail, and he moaned in pain.

“Good evening, Dr Blaine,” Ozpin greeted her, and she looked up from the student to him.

“Ah, hello, Professor – would you _stay still?_ – sorry, not you, Forest here – yes, _I know it hurts_ , but I have to make it better – how can I help you this fine evening?”

“Not really ‘fine’,” Qrow muttered, and suddenly Forest yelped in pain and the doctor tutted at him.

“Whatever would your father say if I told him a few little cuts on your tail got you behaving like _this_?”

“Doctor, this is Qrow Branwen, an ex-student from before your time, and a Huntsman who I rely on greatly. Unfortunately, he has had an accident that has broken several bones in his hand. I’ve strapped it up, but I can do nothing else for it except wait for his Aura. You, however…”

“Can fix it just fine. Lovely to meet you, Mr Branwen, just let me finish fixing my silly billy son and I’ll be right over – _Forest, stop wiggling your tail, you’re making it worse!_ ”

Qrow half-smiled at the doctor and Ozpin gestured for him to lie on the triage chair. Qrow pulled Harbinger from his back and passed it to Oz, before using his good hand to push himself up onto the doctor’s chair and wait for her to come over. The school’s doctor when he’d been here was a very short, fat, middle-aged man called Dr Mahogany, who was the most enthusiastic fan of cycling as a sport Qrow had ever met. Not that there were masses of competition for that role in Qrow’s mind: he was fairly sure he’d never met anyone else who would describe themselves as a ‘fan of cycling’, but Dr Mahogany had been absolutely obsessed with it. To each their own, he supposed.

Mahogany had been a good doctor, though. He’d sat and told 19-year-old Qrow jokes for hours one night when Qrow had been brought in, barely conscious, breathing weakly and extremely confused in Taiyang’s arms, having overdosed on his Xanax, which he washed down with a fuckton of whiskey, trying to keep Qrow present, keep him awake, keep him breathing while the IV flushed his system. Qrow remembered the few days spent cooped up in here after that awful night. He remembered Summer crying. He remembered Taiyang crying. He remembered Raven calling him stupid. He sang the entirety of West Side Story to himself one of the nights when he couldn’t fall asleep, without realising there was another kid a few beds away from him. It had been alright, though, the kid liked Bernstein music.

“Right then, Mr Branwen. My lemur of a son is fixed, so it’s your turn. Do you know how my Semblance works?”

“Can’t say I do, unless it’s the same as the last doctor’s.”

“Ah, Mahogany’s, no, it isn’t. Richard healed by manipulating his patient’s own Aura with his Semblance to fix them. My Semblance, however, directly heals any injury, no work from your Aura required – with the downside that it will be as painful as it was to sustain the injury in the first place. It’s called **Tainted Treatment**. May I see your hand?”

“Cheery fucking name for it,” he grumbled, and raised his broken hand for the doctor to look at. She grimaced.

“When you said an ‘accident’, Ozpin, I didn’t realise you actually meant ‘Boxer’s fracture aggravated by ill-advised jewellery’,” she said as she inspected Qrow’s hand, beginning to unwind the medical tape. “That’s what happened, yes? You punched something very hard, and you had rings on these two fingers?” Qrow nodded. She rolled her eyes.

“Well, I can fix it no problem, but like I say, it will hurt. And perhaps more than you’re expecting, since I assume you had quite a lot of adrenaline to numb the pain when you actually broke the bones.” Qrow sighed.

“Yeah. I can take it, though. Don’t worry. Just…” he drew his flask from his pocket, held it between his thighs while he unscrewed it, and then took three large gulps. He let his tongue loll out for a second because of the burn, and then closed the flask. “Oz, you got a handkerchief?” Ozpin nodded, and produced a soft, dark-green cotton handkerchief from a blazer pocket, which he handed to Qrow. Qrow shook out the folded square, and then screwed it into a ball, which he put in his mouth. He gave Dr Blaine a thumbs up with his good hand, and she nodded, closing both of her hands around Qrow’s broken one.

Qrow’s red Aura came into view, curling protectively around his body, and he bit down hard on the fabric in his mouth as the doctor’s Semblance was activated. A peach glow appeared around her hands and then snaked in and around Qrow’s hand too, and Qrow gave a muffled yell that turned into a groan as suddenly, he had the pain of three bones breaking and his skin splitting open coursing through him. He felt Ozpin take his good hand, and Qrow squeezed tight, closing his eyes and breathing deeply in through his nose. He groaned again, and Dr Blaine reassured him he was doing well, and that it was almost over, and suddenly the pain was white-hot intense and Qrow yelled ‘fuck!’ as loudly as he could through his improvised gag which made the doctor laugh, and then she let go of his hand and it was finished. He flexed his fingers. No sign it had been injured and broken whatsoever, except a tiny amount of dried blood caught in his cuticles. He spat the handkerchief out onto his lap.

“You managed that very well, you know. Most patients who don’t take painkillers in advance try to flinch away from me,” Dr Blaine said, pointedly looking in the direction of Forest’s bed.

“Thanks. I guess I’ve had worse. But also, I thought it would be kind of a bad choice to rip my broken hand away from the woman fixing it. And I’ve had my fill of bad choices for today.” Ozpin gently squeezed Qrow’s left hand once more before letting go.

“And you don’t need anything else? Ozpin?” Ozpin shook his head while Qrow took a drink from his flask.

“No, that’s everything. Thank you so much, Juliet,” Ozpin said. The doctor smiled and inclined her head.

“You’re welcome. Mr Branwen? Next time hit something with a little more give. Perhaps, oh, I don’t know, a punching bag?” Qrow grinned at her, although Ozpin could tell it wasn’t as genuine a smile as his usual grins.

“Solid advice, doc. Thanks.” He shoved Oz’s handkerchief, damp with spit, into one of his pockets and climbed off the bed, before grabbing Harbinger and putting it on his back. After a last expression of gratitude to Dr Blaine, Qrow and Ozpin left the medical wing.

“Dinner started five minutes ago, if you’d like to eat in the hall,” Ozpin said while looking at his pocket watch. This goddamn man, Qrow thought, a pocket watch. Really. Fitted the aesthetic perfectly, he supposed.

“I’m not actually hungry,” Qrow replied. Ozpin gave him a withering look.

“You flew here from Patch without stopping.”

“I did, yeah.”

“So you need to eat.”

“But I’m not hungry.”

“I’m afraid I don’t particularly care, Mr Branwen.” Qrow chuckled softly.

“You don’t? That’s mean.”

“Well, you know what they say. Spare the rod, spoil the child, and such.”

“I’m not a _child_ , Oz. Else you’d be a _massive_ creep.” Ozpin laughed. Qrow continued:

“I’m pretty fucking exhausted, Oz. I think I’d rather eat in your quarters than in a hall of schoolkids.”

“Very well. We’ll go straight there, then, I’ll have someone bring food over. Is there anything in particular you would like?” Ozpin took out his scroll and sent a message to someone. Despite the relationship Qrow had with Oz these days, he still knew very little about the actual administration of the school, and as such he had no idea who that message would be to in order to get food to materialise in Ozpin’s quarters.

“Not really. Uh, maybe some Coca-Cola would be nice, I guess. Actual food, though, whatever. I’m easy.” Ozpin nodded, and send another message before putting his scroll away. They didn’t encounter any students on the walk to the other side of the campus, presumably as most would be in the hall, and Qrow simply followed Ozpin into his quarters, drinking from his flask as he crossed the threshold.

Qrow left Harbinger by the door, then walked straight through to Ozpin’s bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. He just lay there for a minute, quiet, before sitting up and unbuttoning his shirt, which still had his blood on it. He ran his hands down his torso absently as he stood and walked to the wardrobe, fingers feeling the bumps and ridges of many scars littering his skin. Maybe littering was unfair, actually – he liked a lot of them. Qrow pulled a canvas bag down from the top shelf of Ozpin’s wardrobe, and from it pulled out one of his own t-shirts (plain dark grey) and some sweatpants (plain black) he kept here for this express purpose. He put the casual clothes on and threw his bloodied shirt and trousers vaguely in the direction of the hamper on the other side of the room, then lay back down on the bed and drank the last of the kirsch in his flask. He was a little light-headed. A few minutes later, Ozpin came into the bedroom, carrying two plates, one with a pile of chicken salad sandwiches, one with a pile of chips. He put the plates down on the bed, and Qrow smiled.

“You’re actually going to let me eat food in bed.” Ozpin rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too. He shrugged off his blazer and hung it up on a coat hanger on the back of the bedroom door.

“You’ve had a very rough day. I can forgive it. Just don’t get crumbs everywhere.” Qrow took a chip and ate it. It almost burned his mouth, but it was good. Well-salted. Crispy outside, fluffy inside. Why was he analysing a chip, again?

Ozpin had unbuttoned and removed his waistcoat, and Qrow watched as he pulled off his cowl. Ozpin went to put it on his dressing table, but Qrow reached out for it, and Ozpin acquiesced. Ozpin smiled as Qrow held the cowl up to his face and breathed in deeply. Since it spent all day wrapped around Ozpin’s neck, it picked up the scent of Ozpin’s cologne rather strongly, and Ozpin had been right – Qrow had had a very fucking rough day. Ozpin disappeared from the bedroom for a minute, and returned with two tumblers and two litres of Coca-Cola. Qrow was eating a triangle of sandwich and looking at his scroll. Ozpin poured them each a glass of pop on the bedside table and then moved his cowl from where Qrow had left it on the bed to the dressing table, before moving the two plates such that he could sit completely on the bed too.

“Uh,” started Qrow, a little thickly through a mouthful of bread, chicken and lettuce, “have you got anything else I can drink too?”

“Qrow, I’m not sure-”

“Oz, please. I just wanna eat this, drink until I’m sleepy, and fall asleep without having any fucking nightmares. I don’t wanna get so drunk I act out.” Ozpin sighed, and looked at Qrow intently.

“Go and fetch the vanilla Cîroc from the cellarette. It’ll be nice in the soda.” Qrow nodded and did as Ozpin said: the cellarette was in the hallway, and full of a variety of fancy spirits and wines that were definitely older than Qrow, and likely older than Oz, too, but he extracted just the vodka and brought it back into the bedroom. Ozpin had put music on – Jeff Buckley’s album _Grace_ , which Qrow loved – and Qrow climbed back onto the bed. He opened the vodka, then took his pop, slurped some out, and then topped up the glass with the spirit. He did the same with Ozpin’s.

The two of them ate in relative quiet, Qrow occasionally humming along to the music, but he was obviously tired. He had, after all, flown across a large section of sea and the entirety of Vale to reach Beacon, in one go, and as quickly as he could. Qrow finished his second glass of vodka coke and could feel the sleepy airiness of his mind, and he shuffled closer to Ozpin on the bed, so he could rest his head against Oz’s upper arm.

“I hate my sister.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, to be honest.”

The song _Lover, You Should’ve Come Over_ began and Qrow actually sang, softly. Qrow had a good voice for music like this, Ozpin reflected. Perhaps it was because of how desperately sad Jeff Buckley’s music is, he thought, and what a damaged individual Qrow was. Ozpin wrapped an arm around Qrow and held him. When _Corpus Christi Carol_ started, Qrow stopped singing, and Ozpin sighed, before standing from the bed. He took the two plates, now empty, out of the bedroom, and Qrow poured roughly a double of Cîroc into his empty glass and drank it neat. It was strong, obviously, but tasted relatively nice for straight vodka. He finished it just as Ozpin came back, and he watched on as Oz changed into clothes he could sleep in.

“Go and brush your teeth, Qrow. You’ve had a lot to drink.” Qrow rolled his eyes, but did as he was told – Oz’s en-suite was nice, anyway. He was a tiny fraction unsteady on his feet as he walked, but it wasn’t horrendous. He’d not had that much, he didn’t think. Oz definitely underestimated him. When Qrow came back into the bedroom, and Oz went into the en-suite, Qrow swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of the vodka straight from the bottle. A lot to drink, really, had Oz even met him? He screwed the cap back on and rolled the bottle under the bed.

Qrow was lying in the bed with Oz, under the duvet, comfortable and warm. It was darker than he remembered – oh, yeah, they were going to sleep, Oz had turned out the main light and put the small lamp on. Oz was sat up, reading something. A book. Obviously a book. Qrow giggled at his own dumb thought. Oz looked at him.

He had his face pressed into Oz’s side, and Oz was reading aloud. Had Qrow asked him to do that? He did like the sound of Oz’s voice. The book was quite an old one, from the way it sounded. It was going over Qrow’s head. He shuffled around until he was half-curled-up with his head in Oz’s lap.

He was so warm. It felt so nice. Qrow kissed Oz’s thigh through his pyjama trousers and he felt Oz ruffle his hair gently. Qrow twisted his head a little and mouthed at Oz’s dick-

“Qrow, you’re drunk,” Oz said, lifting Qrow’s face with two fingers under his chin so they were looking at each other.

“I love you,” Qrow said. Ozpin paused.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m always drunk, Oz.”

“Mmm,” and Oz closed his book and put it on the nightstand before gently rolling Qrow onto his back, and then lying down himself.

Qrow rolled himself back over onto his front, and pushed himself onto his hands and knees. He looked down at Oz. Oz looked up at him. Qrow giggled. He sort of awkwardly shifted across and then lay down, and he was half on top of Oz’s body. Qrow twisted his head so his face was against Oz’s neck and kissed, bit at him a little, and then tried to start sucking a bruise into his skin. Oz put a hand into Qrow’s hair and tugged, which made Qrow whine in mild discomfort and pull back.

“He-e-e-y, that’s not fair,” Qrow said, and Oz moved both of his hands so he was cupping Qrow’s face. Oz pulled him down and kissed him properly, although Qrow kept trying to lick quite aggressively into Oz’s mouth. Oz gently pushed Qrow up again.

“You need to get some sleep, Qrow.”

“But I’m sad. And now you’re being mean to me too.”

“Qrow… sleep. Please. You’ll feel better.”

“Uuuuuuuh. ‘s’whatever, I guess. I love you.” Ozpin helped Qrow settle comfortably on his side, so he could press up against Oz if he wanted.

Qrow woke up, and for a few seconds was very confused about where he was, until his eyes got a little used to the darkness and he realised it was Oz next to him, sleeping. Qrow looked over at the dim digital clock on the nightstand, which read two something, the number wouldn’t stay still. Whatever. He couldn’t even remember why he was even at Oz’s, and not home with Tai and stuff.

He woke up again, and there was sunlight in the room, although diffused by the curtains that were still drawn, and Qrow sat up. He had a little bit of a headache, but more troubling was that his whole body ached. Why was that?

His memories woke up too. _Raven. Fucking Raven_. It was the long flight he’d done, that’s why he ached. He was alone in Ozpin’s bed, and the clock read 11:38. There was a bottle of water, a packet of aspirin, and a piece of paper, folded in half, with his name written on it on the side table. Qrow opened the note. Ozpin had gone over to the school, he was teaching, there was bread for toast in the kitchen if he wanted it, and his combat outfit had been taken to the on-site laundrette and should be brought back to Ozpin’s quarters at around midday. Qrow sighed, grateful for Oz, even if he was complicated, and popped out two of the painkillers and took them with the water. He didn’t feel so bad – not badly hungover, definitely unhappy because of the all-over ache. He remembered last night, as well, which was good. Food, bed, kissed Oz a bit-

Alright, maybe a few gaps, but he’d not done anything remotely interesting. As far as he could tell, he’d just stayed in bed all night. He’d grab a shower, and hopefully his clothes should be brought to him, and if they weren’t ready he could have some toast and then get dressed. And then the painkillers would have kicked in, and it’d be fine. They could talk a little more about Raven, about what they should do. If she was a threat. Qrow scratched his head, and remembered Ozpin pulling his hair. Why had Oz pulled his hair?-

_Oh._ Brothers, that was a bit awkward. Nice-awkward, but still awkward. Qrow reached into the shower and turned the water on, letting it warm up before he undressed and got in. Yeah, okay, he’d started trying to give Oz a hickey and Oz had pulled his hair to make him stop. Qrow could deal with that-

_‘you told him you loved him and he just said you’re drunk’_

_‘he just sees you as a stupid kid, don’t you get it?’_

_‘you abandoned your tribe for a world you don’t fit into’_

_‘everything around you is crashing down and it’s all your fault’_

“Shut up, idiot,” Qrow said to himself, and started washing his hair a little aggressively. Stupid insidious little whispers. He didn’t actually hear voices, he wasn’t that crazy, it was just the bad thoughts that didn’t leave him alone. He’d only taken his morning Xanax yesterday, because then he’d come to Beacon. If there wasn’t any amongst Oz’s medicines, he’d go and see the doctor again. She was nice enough.

“Goddamn scare-Qrow’s not losing his mind,” he said out loud, to nobody in particular.


	4. ‘Look, just remember that you’ve still got a long way to go.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: I’m not a lawyer. The rules I’m using for Summer’s declaration of ‘death in absentia’ is rather unreflective of how it works in real life (at least in Britain). But, y’know… fiction. Jazz hands intensify. Bartholomew is written as a hummingbird Faunus (which is how I always think of him unless I otherwise specify), with his Faunus trait being an abnormally high heart rate and metabolism. I’m treating both Bart and Peter as if they are part of Ozpin’s inner circle, because…. because I can. You can rip PortBleck as a ship from my cold, dead hands.

Qrow wasn’t great at talking about his feelings, but he was doing better than Taiyang. Then again, he supposed, this was more difficult for Taiyang than it was for him. Second time for both of them, though.

The lawyer and the coroner were sat across from Qrow and Tai at the table in the kitchen in the Patch house, Peter Port stood next to the table as a witness. Yang and Ruby were in their playroom with Bartholomew.

And Summer was the topic of the papers spread in front of them.

“Six months,” said the lawyer, “is long enough, given we can prove a situation of mortal peril. It’s been established by two independent search teams, one from Vale, one from Atlas, that multiple packs of Megoliaths, all led by Alpha Megoliaths, are present in the last area Ms Rose was known to be. That’s a deadly situation, even for an experienced Huntress. And you both agree that this behaviour would be unbelievably out of character for her.” Qrow drank from his flask, looking down at the paperwork. Taiyang’s knuckles were white with how hard his fists were clenched.

“I know that this is a horrendous situation, Mr Xiao Long, Mr Branwen, and you both have my deepest condolences-”

“We don’t _need_ condolences, because she _isn’t dead_. _Dead people leave corpses._ ” Taiyang said, voice strained. Qrow’s free hand came to rest on one of Tai’s thighs under the table. The coroner and lawyer looked at each other.

“Y’know, these forms are pretty fucking gross. They’re the same ones you use for suing someone, aren’t they? This shit’s treated as if Tai’s just trying to get at Summer’s rights.” The lawyer observed Qrow carefully.

“I’m very sorry. This is just how the law works. I assure you, this is far from an enjoyable situation for any of us.”

“Tch, you’d be a pair of sick bastards if you _did_ enjoy this,” Qrow said, voice low.

The coroner sighed and picked up one of the pages closest to him and laid directly it in front of Taiyang. It had mostly been filled out, aside from the names and signatures required at the bottom. As Summer was a Huntress, to be pronounced ‘dead in absentia’, the paperwork needed to signed off by three people: her next of kin confirming the transferral of all her worldly assets to them (Taiyang, since Ruby was an infant); a coroner to confirm that it was indeed significantly more likely than not she had perished despite the lack of actual evidence (the guy sat across from Qrow, who’d brought the asshole lawyer along); and someone from the council of the Kingdom she lived in to acknowledge the death of a Huntress in the field (Peter, on behalf of Ozpin, who was otherwise occupied by the sudden news ‘Winter’ had suffered a heart attack, and Feldgrau wanted him in Atlas in case the worst happened). Qrow felt sick, and took a drink to try and settle his stomach. He wasn’t remotely surprised when it didn’t help.

Summer’s disappearance had torn through all their lives like a hurricane. The months after Raven had abandoned them had been very difficult, and Qrow had been broken up about whether he should stay or fly, but ultimately Summer and Tai had reassured him they loved him so much and didn’t care if he was a bad luck charm, they needed him around. And, slowly, as Taiyang had recovered, him and Summer grew closer, until they realised they were actually in love and got together. Qrow had joked he was the third wheel, _again_. Maybe their family was unorthodox, especially when Summer got knocked up and Ruby was born, what with half-sister babies, the ex-wife’s brother siding firmly with his in-laws, a fucking wizard somewhere in between another uncle and a grandparent, without even starting on James and Glynda and Bart and Pete, but it was _their family_. And now it was falling apart all over again. Qrow drank against the oncoming headache.

Taiyang was startled when he felt one of Peter’s hands come to rest on his shoulder.

“Tai, even if we sign these, it doesn’t mean we have to stop looking. It simply means you will have sole and full legal rights over Ruby in the meantime. Ozpin won’t stop looking until you say so,” Peter said, and Taiyang cleared his throat. The lawyer’s fingers tapped on the table.

“Technically, you aren’t supposed to sign these unless you do believe she is dead-”

“Shut up, _pal_ ,” Qrow growled, “if you grow a heart, let me know, yeah?” The lawyer glared at Qrow.

“With all due respect, Mr Branwen, this is legally no concern of yours.” Qrow’s eyes narrowed and he stood, his chair screeching with the force it was pushed back.

“And _you’re_ only here because the fucking coroner doesn’t believe we can sign on a dotted line without supervision. Get your head out of your ass, be quiet, and let Taiyang make his fucking mind up in peace,” he half-yelled, anger clear in his tone, and Peter walked around the table, taking him by the shoulders and looking at him. Qrow was seething now, and Peter went to say something to reassure him, but then Qrow’s Aura visibly flickered over his body.

Ruby shrieked in the playroom, and it didn’t sound like it was from excitement. Qrow’s expression changed instantly, and he looked down at his hands in disbelief, catching the very end of the red glow that streaked across his skin, and he bolted from the room, bodily pushing Peter out of the way and practically throwing himself out of the kitchen and through the playroom door. Bartholomew was sat on the sofa, parts of his PhD research around him, Ruby crying sat in his lap, and he had one of her tiny hands clasped in both of his. Yang was stood right next to them, looking like she was going to cry herself.

“Qrow,” Bart said, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t stop it-” Qrow dropped to his knees next to his nieces and lifted a shaking hand to Ruby’s face, lifting it so she was looking at him. She tried to say his name, but she wasn’t very good at pronouncing it yet (she struggled with ‘r’ sounds) and it was unintelligible through her sobbing.

“Ruby, Ruby, it’s okay, I’m sorry, I love you, I’m sorry,” and he gently stroked her cheek with his thumb and looked up at Bart, “what happened?” Bart looked absolutely crestfallen. Taiyang and Peter came into the room.

“This,” said Yang unexpectedly, and she held something out to Qrow. He looked down. It was plastic, purple plastic, but what it was from, he couldn’t work out. It had broken off of something, and the shattered edge was sharp and had blood on it. Qrow took it and pocketed it, despite the blood. Taiyang told Qrow to move and he did, and Tai picked Ruby up, hugging her. She wrapped her little arms over his shoulders and around his neck, and Qrow could see her hand now. It was splotched with blood.

Bart had been watching. He’d been watching and he still couldn’t stop it. One of the toys Ruby had been playing with – and after asking Yang, they established it was a Barbie convertible sports car – had inexplicably broken. How a child who had only just turned four could have snapped it, Bart didn’t know, but she’d managed it and the jagged section had cut across her palm. Ruby was still sobbing in her daddy’s arms, and he was murmuring to her and peppering her with kisses. Qrow felt terrible. He knew how Ruby had managed it. How _he’d_ managed it, he supposed.

“Is she gonna die?” Yang said, and Qrow almost laughed in shock at the question.

“No, sweetheart, she’ll be fine,” Peter said, “it looks worse than it is because it’s bleeding, but little Ruby will be perfectly alright.” Pete was stood behind Tai, and was looking at Ruby’s injury. “Come on, Tai, let’s go and get her hand cleaned up.” Tai muttered agreement into his daughter’s hair, and he carried Ruby through into the kitchen, setting her down on the counter next to the sink while Pete briefly told the visitors there’s just been a little accident while she was playing. Qrow sat down next to Bart on the sofa. Yang looked a little lost.

“I don’t like it when Ruby cries,” she said, before sitting abruptly down on the carpet and staring down dejectedly. Qrow drank from his flask, and Bart nudged him.

“She’ll be fine, pipsqueak,” Qrow said, offering Bart a drink. Bart refused, and sighed as deeply as he could. He was vibrating on the spot, anxious and overstimulated.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Bart said, his tone dejected. Qrow shrugged.

“Wasn’t you. It was me. Nothing you could have done.” Yang looked up at her uncle, a puzzled expression on her face. “My Semblance causes accidents, remember? And I got a little upset in the kitchen, and then Ruby screamed.”

“There’s no proof it was you, though,” Bart argued. They all knew Qrow had quite the habit of blaming himself for every little thing, and Ozpin encouraged them to counter him, to tell him his Semblance didn’t cause every accident in the world. Qrow pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“Both me and Pete saw my Aura go crazy for a second on my skin. It was me.” He half sighed, half groaned.

“Sick of not having proof for shit,” he finished, and stood, leaving the room. Bart watched him go, and then looked at Yang. She was staring at the door.

“Yang, shall we… shall we play a game? A board game? Ruby wouldn’t want you to be worrying about her.” She slowly twisted to look at Bart, and nodded, pushing herself up and walking to the shelf with the board games. She tugged ‘Guess Who?’ free and carried it back over to Bart, kicking the toy car with a sharp piece missing out of her way as she did.

Qrow was stood outside the front of the house, staring dejectedly at the beds of sunflowers, flask in one hand, cigarette in the other. He heard the door open next to him and Peter nodded in greeting as Qrow tucked his flask away so he could offer his carton of smokes. Peter took one, giving Qrow a second to put the carton away and pull out his lighter, passing that over too. Peter had always admired this lighter – Qrow had had it since he was a student, and Peter was fairly sure it was based on the design of Ozpin’s office. He handed it back, and once again Qrow swapped the contents of his pocket and hand so he had his flask once more.

“Why can it never be fucking simple, Pete? Why’s shit gotta keep going wrong?” Qrow asked. Peter sighed.

“You know, I’m no great philosopher like Ozpin, and my words of reassurance will no doubt be less effective than his would be.”

“Not like that kind of question has an actual goddamn answer anyway.” Peter nodded.

“Qrow,” and a small smile crossed onto Peter’s face, “pick me up.” Qrow was drinking from his flask, but lowered it slowly and gave Peter a look of disbelief.

“What?”

“Pick me up, off of the ground.” Qrow furrowed his brow, and Peter’s smile grew a little.

“Not… sure I can. You’re kind of a heavy guy. And I’ve been drinking.”

“The problem isn’t that I’m too heavy. The problem is that you’re too weak.” Qrow tilted his head in confusion.

“Kinda rude, when I’ve just told you everything in my life is going to shit, y’know.”

“I know. And I don’t mean it. You probably could lift me if you tried, even if you couldn’t carry me, at any rate. What I mean to say is, the issue isn’t the problems you’re facing, but how you are equipped to deal with them. Nobody is ever prepared, as such, for the disappearance and assumption of death of a family member. As such, it’s hugely overwhelming. And it makes you forget that a small child injuring themselves while playing isn’t really that big of an issue.” Qrow looked at Peter, before dropping the end of his cigarette into the bucket of sand by the door. Peter hadn’t finished his, yet. Qrow took a drink and then shoved his hands into his pockets.

“You and Bart should have kids. You’d be a good dad.” Peter laughed.

“They’d be sick of the sound of my voice within six months. And,” Peter’s expression suddenly turned pensive, “Barty has mentioned he’d be very upset with himself did he have a biological child who was also a Faunus. He wouldn’t want them to suffer.”

“Have your kids, then.”

“For the moment, we’re happy playing honourary uncles to Ruby and Yang, I think,” Peter said, and dropped his cigarette butt into the sand bucket. Qrow was sipping from his flask again. He wasn’t in a good way, clearly.

“Come on back inside, Qrow. Taiyang’s on his own with the lawyers. Let’s try and get this sorted sooner rather than later, yes?” Qrow sighed irritatedly and nodded.

The legal headache session had reconvened in the kitchen, albeit with Ruby now asleep with her head buried in the crook of Taiyang’s neck. Qrow didn’t retake his seat, choosing instead to stand next to Peter. His flask was in his hand and he was counting his breaths, nice and deliberately. Taiyang pressed a kiss to his daughter’s head, and then looked at the coroner and lawyer in turn.

“If Ozpin thinks it’s right – which he does, else he wouldn’t have authorised Pete to sign this – then I trust him. I… I’ll sign. But I don’t… I don’t think I want to have a funeral or anything. At least not yet.” The lawyer nodded.

“That’s a personal decision for you to make. You aren’t legally required to do that.” Taiyang nodded. He looked exhausted. Qrow was just glad the lawyer seemed to be holding his tongue.

“Well, then,” said the coroner, and he passed his pen across the table to Taiyang, who blew out a breath from pursed lips. He kissed Ruby again and picked up the pen, clicking it, and hesitated for a heartbeat with the tip just over the dotted line before signing, printing his name underneath, and dating it today. He half-threw the pen back onto the table and squeezed his eyes shut hard. Qrow bit the inside of his cheek and took a drink. Last of the liquid in the flask. He kept it in his hand. The coroner took the paper, and filled out his section, before turning the document to face Peter and handing over his pen. The lawyer handed Peter an extra sheet of paper on which he wrote and signed his own name and job with some extra wording stating he was Ozpin’s representative. Taiyang didn’t open his eyes. The lawyer picked up the page and looked it over, nodding slowly.

“Thank you, Mr Xiao Long. This is a difficult thing to do, but it is also the right thing to do,” the lawyer said. Anger flashed through Qrow’s mind again.

“ _You_ need to get out of this house now,” he said, and he felt Peter’s hand brush his arm, a gentle reminder to stay as calm as he could, and Qrow clenched his jaw. The lawyer looked unimpressed, but said nothing else as he gathered up the pages spread over the dining table. The coroner stood first, and offered his hand for Taiyang to shake, and then to Peter. When he offered it to Qrow, Qrow simply clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. The lawyer didn’t even bother to offer Qrow his hand. Peter saw the men to the door, and Taiyang stayed practically frozen in his seat in the kitchen. Qrow checked his scroll for the time – 15:38 – and opened one of the cupboards above the window, retrieving a mostly full bottle of whiskey from it. Taiyang opened his eyes at the noise of Qrow decanting the alcohol into his flask, but said nothing. He was tired. Peter returned, and Tai asked him to take Ruby, before leaving the kitchen. Peter and Qrow heard him go upstairs, and his bedroom door thump shut. Ruby stirred a little in Peter’s arms, but didn’t wake.

Bartholomew and Yang were on something like their eighth game of ‘Guess Who?’ and Yang had cheered up considerably.

“Are they a Human?” she asked.

“No. Is yours a Human?” Yang flipped down all the Humans. She looked over everyone left.

“Oh, yes, mine’s Human. Are they a girl?”

“Yes. Is yours a boy?” She flipped down all the boys and nodded her head at Bart. Qrow shuffled off of the sofa and sat on the floor next to her. The TV was on quietly, and Ruby was sat, rather subdued, in Peter’s lap watching it dozily. Some cartoon Qrow didn’t recognise. He sipped from his flask and then put it away.

“What are you gonna ask now, kiddo? Tail or ears? Hair colour?” He asked Yang.

“Uncle Qrow, I don’t need your help to play ‘Guess Who?’. I’m not a baby,” she said, trying to roll her eyes, although because she hadn’t quite got the dexterity for that yet, she kind of just looked at the ceiling and then at the floor. She looked over the characters who were left.

“Does she have a tail?”

“No. Does he have brown hair?” Yang nodded again and flipped down the characters with tails. All Faunus characters in the game had very obvious traits – their tails always reached up into the air next to them, their ears were always totally unobscured, their scales reached up onto their faces. Bartholomew wouldn’t have worked as a character, he thought to himself. Ruby suddenly started wriggling, and she half-climbed, half-fell off the sofa and came over to her sister. Her injured little hand was wrapped in a bandage.

Qrow ruffled Ruby’s hair and stood up, wincing as one of his knees clicked. He went and sat next to Peter on the sofa, and gazed at the TV screen. Whatever cartoon had been on, about fairies or something else that had sparkled a lot, had ended, and Qrow was much happier to be watching the title scenes of ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog’. He took a drink, and offered Peter his flask. Peter declined. He felt a wave of guilt for drinking like this around the kids, but he couldn’t help it. He never could.

Dinner that evening was cooked by Bart and Peter, who were staying the night. There’d been a mild disagreement over whether they or Qrow would sleep in the spare bedroom, but they all eventually (the couple a little begrudgingly) agreed that Qrow would sleep on the sofa, since the bed was bigger. Qrow had occasionally shared Taiyang’s bed while he’d been living here, but since he’d gone upstairs earlier, Tai had stayed locked in his bedroom and not responded to any attempts to interact with him. Peter and Bart had been fantastic with the girls. Qrow had mostly been staying still and drinking. He felt like shit. Bart set plates of spaghetti in front of both of the girls, and they chanted ‘thank you’ in tandem. Qrow had declined food, a distinct lack of appetite, and instead sipped whiskey and water from a lowball. Peter grated cheese onto Yang’s pasta while Bart brought their plates over, too.

Qrow barely felt present at the table. Peter and Bart were talking to the girls, being much more responsible uncles than him, despite the fact they had absolutely no reason to be doing this, other than being good people. He took a larger mouthful of his drink and tried to ignore the horrible feeling in his heart. Summer was gone, and now they’d acknowledged it legally. Did Qrow believe she was dead? He thought so, yes. Else why wouldn’t she come back? Even if she’d been captured, what was the point? Wouldn’t they have received a ransom demand by now? But what he felt was worse is that none of them even knew why she’d gone. What she’d been doing. When she went, Qrow and Tai had assumed Ozpin had given her something to do. But when they’d mentioned it to him in passing, he denied it. He didn’t know where she’d gone, and what she’d gone to do. The only thing they knew at all is she’d been spotted in an inn on the outskirts of a highly dangerous area of Grimm territory. Said inn had one of the largest Huntsmen guard teams in Sanus. Which is why that was written on the papers. Killed in the Sanus wastes by an Alpha Megoliath.

He’d even gone to Raven in secret and _begged_ her to help find Summer. It hadn’t been pretty. He’d flown in, crowed at her, and she’d given him half an hour. He’d physically been made to kneel down and kiss her boots, and she’d kicked him in the face. She’d given him a _present_ , a litre of whiskey, and made him sit there and drink it all before she’d help. It had made him cry, and throw up a few times, and she told him to be grateful she didn’t tell him to lick up the mess he’d made. When he finally managed it, feeling like death, she’d laughed at her utterly inebriated, sick little brother and told him there was nothing she could do, and had some of her lackeys move him a few miles away to the middle of a Grimm-filled forest and dump him there. And they took his scroll. He’d thrown up multiple times and then passed out. He’d woken himself up choking on more vomit, and could barely remember how he’d managed to kill the Sabyr that had found him while he gagged some more and wondered if he was finally dying of alcohol poisoning. He hadn’t, fortunately or not, and had just about managed to transform into a corvid and fly up above the forest, found the nearest river, and then walked slowly along its banks over the next few days until he found a settlement.

He’d told Ozpin the whole story, but he’d just told Taiyang that Raven had punched him and told him to get out of her sight. Tai hadn’t needed to be any more stressed out. And the first thing Qrow had done when he’d gotten home and been cleared by a doctor? Drank. Brothers, in case he wasn’t already certain there was something seriously wrong with him.

“Uncle Qrow?” Yang said, and Qrow realised he’d been staring at the table, completely unresponsive, for at least a minute.

“Sorry, kiddo. Just thinking hard. Could you see steam coming out of my ears?”

“I think I did, actually,” she replied. Qrow smirked. He didn’t really remember the rest of dinner.

Bart shook one of Qrow’s shoulders to get his attention. He was sitting on the sofa, a show about the Atlesian army playing on the TV, his flask in one hand.

“The girls would really like it if you came and read to them,” Bart said. Qrow scoffed.

“Can’t even remember my own fuckin’ name. As if I can read like this.” His tone was more aggressive than he’d wanted it to be, but he didn’t think he cared too much. He took a drink. Bart stepped back.

“Well, maybe you could just come up and say goodnight? They’re a little-”

“Bart, go play fucking house with my goddamn nieces, because you’re so much better at it than me,” Qrow snapped. Why was he so angry? He just was.

“Sorry, Qrow,” Bart said, realising there was no point if Qrow was like this. Qrow stood up. He was shorter than Bartholomew, but that didn’t really seem to matter, not at this moment.

“They’re perfect for you. Hasn’t either of them got a fucking tail, either,” Qrow continued, and he shoved Bart backwards. Bart stumbled back and looked at Qrow, confused hurt written on his face. He didn’t say anything, and the two men stared at each other for a few seconds, before Bart looked away and went to walk out. Qrow grabbed his arm. He smiled bitterly. Bart kept his expression as neutral as he could manage.

“Neither of them would get called a freak, an animal. Would they? Normal kids, right?” Qrow laughed, short and cold, and let go of Bart. An almost imperceptible darkness flickered across Bart’s eyes, but he chose not to reply and left.

Qrow was angry, so he drank from his flask because he didn’t really know what else to do. He went into the kitchen and grabbed the whiskey he’d been drinking today, about a third of it left, and took Harbinger from by the back door, holstering it as securely as he could to his back and leaving the house with his half-full flask in his pocket and the third-full bottle in his hand. He opened the bottle as he walked out and dropped the cap to the ground.

He was stood in the middle of the forest by the house when the anger turned to hatred. Hatred, a pure form, a world-breaking form, and it was all for himself. He hated himself.

_‘one day those around you will stop just tolerating you’_

_‘people are fighting and dying around you and you still act out for attention’_

_‘trained to kill people, then to protect people, and you’re useless at both’_

_‘everything around you has crashed down and it’s all your fault’_

“Shut _UP!_ ” Qrow roared and he drew Harbinger with his right hand, drinking from the whiskey bottle with his left. He heard a noise of a creature of Grimm nearby.

“Then come’n’fuckin’ _KILL ME_!” he screamed.

Qrow grunted in pain. What was causing that pain? He was knelt on the ground and his knees hurt. One hand dropped from Harbinger’s handle and onto to the ground in front of him. That hurt like a bitch too. He tried to focus on the ground. It was wet. Well, it was glittering. Oh. It was covered in broken glass. The whiskey bottle. That’s why it hurt.

He was slammed across the floor by an Ursa Minor he hadn’t seen coming. Qrow fired a shot into the ground to help him get up and pulled Harbinger sharply around his back, and he felt it as the scythe cut through the Grimm. He dug around in his pockets and found his flask, which wasn’t empty, and drank from it, before stumbling into the forest in a random direction.

“Qrow, Brothers, wake up,” Qrow heard vaguely above him. He opened his eyes and winced at the pain he felt. Nausea, a headache, and throbbing in his hands, knees and abdomen. Peter was stood above him, Blowhard in hand. Qrow groaned and tried to figure out where he was.

“Barty, I’ve got him,” Peter called, and Qrow raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

“The fuck?” Qrow said, and the way Peter looked at him made him feel like a schoolchild. Bartholomew emerged from behind some other trees and didn’t make eye contact with Qrow. Bart walked around Qrow, and reached down for something, Harbinger. It was still fully out in scythe form, and he didn’t know how to retract it, so instead he retracted Antiquity’s Roast and slotted it onto his belt so he could hold the scythe in two hands. Peter swung Blowhard over his shoulder to holster it on his back, before crouching next to Qrow, and with a grunt of effort lifted him up bridal-style.

“Qrow… whatever are we going to do with you?” Peter said. Qrow gave a moan of discomfort at the way he bounced up and down slightly as Peter walked, and closed his eyes to minimise the nausea. Bart followed behind them, carrying Harbinger. It was quite a few minutes, at least ten, Qrow wasn’t exactly sure, until they reached the house, and Bart rested Harbinger outside before going in and holding the door open for Peter to carry Qrow in.

“Glynda,” Peter called, “we found the bird. Would you tell Ozpin?” Qrow opened his eyes and was staring at the wooden ceiling, and then Peter put him down on the sofa. Qrow looked slowly around the room. Bart sat down in the armchair. Qrow groaned, and Peter went into the kitchen. Ruby and Yang were sat at the table, sets of flashcards in front of them, and Glynda was sat across from them, her scroll on the table with a timer.

“And is the bird injured?” she asked. “45 seconds, girls.”

“No,” Peter said, “or at least not seriously.”

“Then I trust you can take care of the issues?”

“Indeed I can, Glynda. Good luck, girls,” he said, before heading back to the living room. Yang looked up to smile at him as he left, but Ruby was staring intently at her flashcards, her tongue poking out of her mouth. Peter shut the kitchen door properly behind him.

Peter stood behind where Bartholomew was sat, and Qrow pushed himself up so he was sitting up on the sofa, although hardly with perfect posture. He retched, once, but fought down the urge to actually throw up. His head hurt, and he couldn’t bring himself to meet Bart’s eyes. Shouting at him was one of the last coherent memories Qrow had.

“First things first,” said Bartholomew, and Qrow finally forced his pathetic gaze up to look at Bart, “how do you feel?”

“Hungover,” Qrow answered, his voice a little croaky. “I have a headache, I’m nauseous, I’d like another drink.”

“Physical injuries?” Bart asked.

“Uh, hands, knees, abdomen. First two are cut up, last one is just bruised. Nothing’s broken, I don’t think. Aura will fix me up in a few hours, a few days at most. It’s not so bad.”

“Were you attacked?” Peter asked. Qrow nodded. He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t really know what. And then, before he could stop himself:

“I wanted to be. I wanted the Grimm to hurt me. I remember… I remember being attacked while I was on my hands and knees, and I killed it, but… I didn’t care if I succeeded or not,” he swallowed, “I didn’t care if it killed me, or I killed it.” Peter and Bart were both watching him. “I’m sorry,” Qrow said. Guilt was gnawing at his heart.

“You don’t have to apologise for feeling that way. You’re in a very stressful time, Qrow. But… you can’t behave like this. Don’t apologise for feeling like that. Apologise for lashing out, instead of reaching out,” Peter said. Qrow dug his nails into his palm. His hand hurt. There were still a few slivers of glass in his skin his Aura hadn’t worked out yet. He couldn’t remember for sure, but he wouldn’t be surprised if his Aura had broken last night.

“Bartholomew. I… fuck, I’m so sorry for the way I spoke to you. I’m so, so sorry.” Bartholomew sighed.

“I forgive you. To be honest, it was far from the worst you could have said. Yes, I mean, in some ways, your… sentiment was correct. I’m also sorry if you do feel as though Peter and I are overstepping our boundaries-”

“Nah,” Qrow interrupted, “this place would probably have burnt down if you weren’t around to help. Tai… Tai’s not coping. I’m not fucking coping. Someone has to look after those girls. I don’t know what the fuck’s going to happen when the Beacon term starts again and you have to work. I… I don’t think I should stay here any more, to be honest.”

Which was the truth. It was how Qrow felt. It was what he needed. He worked better alone, and it never ended well when he gave into his more indulgent dreams of staying around his good friends, his nieces, this family that had been created around him and was being ripped apart more and more the longer he stayed. He could never do what Raven had done – Qrow was loyal, loyal to a fault, to Oz – but he couldn’t do _this_ any more, this world of shattered promises of being there for Tai and reading stories to the kids and not wandering off into a forest without a care to whether he was killed by monsters. He looked up at Bart and Peter. His eyes stung.

“Me and Tai both need help. We really fucking do. But… he needs help here. He needs therapy, and to be with the girls, and his friends to support him. I need help somewhere else. I need space. I need to go and work away, and maybe I need fucking therapy away, but I can’t stay. I just can’t. And I can’t let myself be convinced any longer by all the people who care about me that it’ll be better if I do stay.”

Qrow’s heart hurt. Raven would have called him weak. She’d made an easy decision, though – run off back to a world where she was practically a princess, where the only options were kill and steal, so once you threw out your morals, it was easy to make choices. Or maybe she’d never had the morals. Had Qrow been born with morals? Or did he learn things his sister could just never comprehend? He didn’t _want_ to make difficult choices. Nobody ever wanted to. But difficult choices were the only ones Qrow Branwen had left, and he couldn’t put off choosing any longer. He couldn’t abandon these people, these people who loved him, despite what he did. These people who had fought by his side, looked after his family, dragged him off of the dusty ground, even when he drank and swore and insulted their species and ruined so much around him.

He could never abandon them. He had to protect them. And if he had to leave, if he had to isolate himself, travel across this world slaying monsters on his own, in order to protect them, then that’s the choice he’d have to make.


	5. ‘Did you think you were being discreet, or did you just not give a damn?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: I made the decision to write James as having become General first, and then Headmaster – initially he was the leader of the Ace Ops and taught classes at the Academy. James was then promoted to General, and since this actually gave him a little more time at his desk rather than out on operations, he was chosen to take over from Feldgrau as Headmaster. Also implied that homophobia is a Thing(tm) in Atlas: although from what I’ve read, that’s not an uncommon headcanon?

Mantle was always the same, cold and smoky and dark, full of people – mostly Faunus – coming off mine shifts in the ungodly hours, some of Remnant’s most skilled engineers stuck repairing failing heating that could malfunction and kill them in a heartbeat because Atlas wouldn’t have them. Qrow was a paradox of blending in perfectly and sticking sorely out. Terrible posture, exhausted expression and street drinking really did give him a vibe of a down-and-out Mantle citizen (and his unkempt hair was easy enough to mistake for feathers in the fog). When, however, people caught a glimpse of the impressive weapon on his back and witnessed him walking through doors in the transport centre that required high security clearance (despite not being dressed remotely like an Atlesian soldier), eyes narrowed and he wasn’t seen as one of them anymore.

Qrow, for what it was worth, was a supporter of those in Mantle who were more aggressive against Atlas, the city that had stolen everything from them, but his hands were tied for two reasons, one of which he cared about much more than the other. The one he really cared about, well, as usual, was Ozpin. Ozpin had spent all of this life and many before doing his best to establish unity, to break down divisions, and while he was indeed dismayed by the disparity between a city he’d once known as the greatest in Solitas and Atlas’s relatively new, futuristic utopia, he was firmly of the belief that fighting between the two would only result in greater problems, ones that could not be contained. If Mantle’s insurgency started a fight, then they’d cross that bridge – but Qrow sure as hell wasn’t going to help it along by throwing stones as a foreigner. Not when Ozpin had kneaded his temples as he’d asked Qrow to be good.

The second reason, that Qrow was much less committed to, was the newly-promoted _Headmaster General_ Ironwood. He didn’t hate the man, no, no. There were people Qrow hated (the list started with both of the Branwen twins), and James wasn’t one of them. No, Ironwood more just irritated him, even if he had potential. He was just different in personality to Qrow, and at least from Qrow’s perspective, they clashed a little too much. And Qrow would readily admit James’s good points: he was a fantastic fucking Huntsman, handsome to Qrow even with ugly Atlesian views about gay men, tactically superb even if he did have to play into the hands of the Atlesian elites a little too much to manage everything. But, because of James, Qrow held his tongue (as much as he could) about Mantle. The man came off as highly-strung at best, and paranoid at worst. Shouldn’t have taken two jobs, then, should he?

Qrow sat down heavily into a chair in the higher-security clearance waiting-room of the transportation centre. It was Atlesian-built, naturally, but still nothing compared to the one actually on Atlas. He, no uniform, kind of grubby, non-standard weapon, didn’t look as if he belonged in here, what with the clean white walls and the standardised décor, but Qrow wasn’t the type to be self-conscious in front of some robots guarding the door. He looked up at the screen, much less cluttered with arrivals and departures than the one in the main waiting area, and drank from his flask as he tried to get his eyes to focus on which one was for him. He could have sworn he’d hit 36, properly being closer to 40 than 30, and his vision had immediately started pretending he was old and needed glasses.

“Huntsman Branwen?” came a voice, a quarter of an hour later, and Qrow glanced up from the poker game he’d been playing on his scroll. An Atlesian soldier stood there, airfleet judging by her uniform, and he held up a finger to her, asking for a second. His hand was awful anyway, a two of clubs and a seven of hearts, so he folded and briefly mourned the loss of his Lien (he hadn’t been betting enough to even buy chocolate from a vending machine, but it was the sentiment), before logging out, putting his scroll back in his pocket and standing. He half-smiled at the soldier as he lifted Harbinger from where it was leaning against the chair next to him onto his back, and followed her through the door at the back of the room that led out onto the airfield.

She’d shouted mandatory safety information from the co-pilot’s seat at him over the noise of the starting engines, asking him to please take his seat and fasten himself in while they rode up to Atlas, which he’d naturally completely ignored and instead stood holding onto nothing looking out of one of the windows. He was only going up to Atlas, not leaving the continent – if the pilot couldn’t keep a ship steady just for that, then this so-called air force needed to step up its training process.

Qrow observed the General through the glass as the ship began its descent onto Atlesian tarmac, all six foot whatever of him, two soldiers’ worth of honour guard five steps behind, all waiting at a sensible distance from the landing pad for the little birdie carrying all of Ozpin’s secrets. Landing the damn thing took longer than the trip, and it wasn’t like Qrow couldn’t fly that high, but practicality wasn’t the point. Finally, when the engines quietened, the co-pilot got out and came to pull open the side door, and he stepped down into the air that was much crisper and cleaner than that of below. He walked towards Ironwood, and Ironwood walked towards him. When they met, they shook hands. Qrow could feel the metal underneath the glove.

“It’s good to see you, my friend,” Ironwood said, and Qrow snorted a laugh as he released the handshake and shoved his hands into his pocket. Ironwood’s hands went to rest again in the small of his back.

“Didn’t realise I was actually your friend, _General Ironwood_. Or should that be _Headmaster General_ now? Or how about _Your Highness_?” Ironwood sighed slightly, although a small smile crept onto his face.

“I’ve told you before. James is fine.”

“Ha, imagine that, the great military mind letting a peasant address him by first name,” Qrow replied. “It’s fucking freezing out here.” Ironwood nodded.

“It usually is. Come, there’s a car waiting.” He turned about, sharply, precisely, and Qrow rolled his eyes before following, moving so he was walking at the General’s side. The two soldiers waited for them to pass and then followed behind.

Qrow was drinking from his flask, sat next to Ironwood in the back of an armoured car, when his scroll beeped in his pocket. He dug it out, a little awkwardly since his trousers were tight and his pockets not very accessible when he was sitting down, but eventually lifted up enough despite his seatbelt to reach it. He knew Ironwood was watching him out of the corner of his eye, but Qrow wasn’t the type to be self-conscious in front of a robot driver and a cyborg soldier. The beeping was a message from Ozpin, asking him if he was alright. Crap, Qrow had been meant to text him when he got to Mantle two hours ago (he’d gone to a tavern before finding the waiting room for his flight). He tapped the button at the top of the conversation to simply call Oz instead. Luckily, which was a surprise to Qrow, Oz picked up after a couple of rings. He put it on speakerphone.

“You haven’t died, then,” Ozpin said, mild but dry. Qrow laughed.

“Sorry. Got distracted, and then I came up to Atlas. Sharing a car with Jimmy as we speak.” Ironwood stiffened a little at the nickname, but didn’t say anything about it.

“Good afternoon, Professor Ozpin.”

“Good afternoon, General. I trust Qrow hasn’t caused any problems in the short time he’s been with you.” Ironwood’s turn to laugh.

“James is fine, how many times? And no, Qrow has been well-behaved.”

“Tch, I’m not a goddamned _dog_.”

“You tend to whine like one, though, Qrow.”

“Shut your mouth, Oz. Anyway, just wanted to tell you I’m good and with the General.”

“Have a productive meeting; thank you for doing this for me, Qrow.”

“Welcome. Speak soon.”

“Indeed. Goodbye, James.”

“Have a good evening, Professor,” Ironwood said, and Qrow ended the call.

The gates of Atlas Academy opened automatically for the vehicle, and unlike at Beacon where the students walked wherever they wanted on the concourses outside the school, the students of Atlas kept strictly to the edges, and so none had to move for the car to pass. None of them gave it so much as a glance, really. Qrow gazed out at them, all in their white uniforms, all neat and tidy, perfect little soldiers in training. He was really not a fan of how the Academy was linked to the military here, and he didn’t keep that a secret.

“The kids here are so… reigned in.” Ironwood looked at him.

“Atlas is perhaps a little stricter than Beacon, but both schools produce appropriate Huntsmen for their kingdom. Vale needs a little more adaptability. Atlas requires a little more reliability.”

“They should be fucking around, playing pranks… drinking,” and keeping eye contact with Ironwood (who raised his eyebrows), he gulped from his flask, “student stuff. Brothers know they won’t get to if they join the army.”

“Mmm,” Ironwood replied, “you’re a shining example of the effect that has.” Qrow narrowed his eyes a little.

“Hah. I was fucked from the start. Most of ‘em turn out fine. And even I’ve got the fact I’m Oz’s favourite going for me. You consider yourself the perfect Atlas graduate, I bet?” Ironwood shook his head slightly.

“I’m not perfect. Nobody can be. Although,” Ironwood paused, watching Qrow carefully. Qrow kept his expression neutral, and sipped from his flask, holding the eye contact. “I do realise I am one of the most skilled graduates of the Academy.” Qrow huffed, and looked at his lap, not looking up at the General for the rest of the drive.

This was actually the first time Qrow had met with Ironwood since he’d been told the big secret by Ozpin. They’d met before (even after their encounter at the Vytal Festival as students) as Huntsmen, and more frequently when James was created General, since that also made him an Atlesian councilman. However, when he’d been created Headmaster, and thus had to be told of Salem, the Relics, and the Maidens, Qrow had been thigh-deep in a bayou in western Anima, following a half-lead about the emergency of Spring, so he’d missed the inauguration party. The Headmaster’s office at Atlas was in the process of being modified somewhat, Qrow noticed as Ironwood led him in, and there was already someone in there, a woman sat in front of an easel taking photographs of the painting with her scroll, although Qrow could only see the back of the large canvas from where he was. Ironwood flicked the lights on and off once rapidly, and she looked up, giving Ironwood a brief wave.

“This is Professor Olivia Ackroyd, Qrow, she’s in charge of planning for student welfare at the Academy, but also teaches the art elective. Olivia,” and Qrow watched as Ironwood started signing as he spoke, “ _this is Qrow Branwen. He works for Professor Ozpin_.” Qrow gave her a short wave, and she smiled at him. She put her scroll down.

“ _Do you mind if I leave this stuff in here? Saves me bringing it up again tomorrow,”_ she signed to Ironwood. Qrow watched, but he didn’t understand.

“ _Not at all,_ ” Ironwood replied _, “it’ll come to no harm. How much longer do you think it will take?”_ Ackroyd shrugged.

 _“A few days. It’s not far off, but I want to do shorter sittings so I know these details are dry and set properly. Come and look.”_ Ironwood nodded and motioned for Qrow to follow him. Ackroyd stood and moved back so the two men could and see her work. Qrow gave a disbelieving laugh when he saw the portrait.

It was of Ironwood. Staged as a classical portrait, the General was depicted seated in his office, proper military dress uniform on, the background showing the clear blue Atlesian sky through the full-length windows. Ackroyd was clearly very talented – it was a magnificent painting, a brilliant likeness of Ironwood, and Qrow found himself rather taken by it, the mild contempt he held for the subject notwithstanding. Ironwood was awestruck, deeply impressed. He lifted his gloved hand, not touching the canvas, but as if he would if he could. Qrow switched his gaze from the painting to Ironwood, watching him staring at the portrait with his lips slightly parted. Then, the moment of entrancement broke, and Ironwood wetted his lips slightly before turning to Ackroyd.

 _“You have an incredible gift, Olivia. I’m shocked you managed to make me look so… proper. I was exhausted that day.”_ Ackroyd laughed.

 _“You were. But I’ve seen you on days where you’re a bit more chipper too, so I can take liberties with the erasing of dark circles under your eyes.”_ Qrow felt a little odd watching this conversation he didn’t understand.

_“Anyway, I’ll get on. Leave you up here. See you tomorrow, James?”_

_“Of course. Thank you, genuinely.”_ She nodded, and then smiled at Qrow, signing something.

“She says it was nice to meet you,” Ironwood interpreted.

“Oh, yeah, you too. You’re an incredible artist.” Ironwood, presumably, repeated his words for him in sign language. Ackroyd picked up her bottle of water from next to the easel, and waved at the two men before heading into the lift that would take her from the Headmaster’s office.

Qrow went back to looking at Ironwood, who had turned his attention back to the painting for a second. Qrow tutted, and Ironwood’s gaze snapped back to him.

“Kinda… vain, don’t you think?” Qrow could have sworn Ironwood’s cheeks darkened a little, and Qrow smirked before pulling out his flask.

“It’s customary,” Ironwood replied. “Each Headmaster has a portrait hanging in the Great Hall. Mine has to be added. Many of the paintings are actually from Alsius, so you can see it’s a longstanding tradition.”

“Well, you look good in it, I guess. Classic good-looking guy in uniform. Very… dictatorial.” Ironwood raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not a ‘dictator’, Qrow.” Qrow made a flippant gesture and walked towards the desk, but passing it, his attention having been grabbed by something else that hadn’t been in here when it was Feldgrau’s domain. It was a telescope; Qrow was far from an expert in these things, but it was obviously not your basic model, not with how heavy it looked and the intricate engravings on the tube. He stood next to it and looked at it, although he didn’t touch it. He knew these things were sensitive, and he was not the best kind of man to be around sensitive instruments. He sipped at his drink, and heard Ironwood approach.

“It’s quite new,” Ironwood said, “a gift. From Feldgrau. I’ve always been fascinated by astronomy, I had a telescope in my dormitory when I was just a student under him, and he left me this in his will. He had it engraved by the same smith who engraved my guns.” Ironwood’s expression was complex, proud and wistful and vaguely mournful. Qrow wondered if Feldgrau had been to Ironwood as Ozpin was to him.

“I mean, it’s nice. Looks fancy. I don’t know about this kind of stuff, though.” Ironwood smiled.

“It’s set up for an observation of Alabaster’s Comet – officially designated ‘18P/Alabaster’ - at twenty-one three four tonight. The comet was discovered before the war, and is periodic, so it’s visible from Remnant once every 45.62 years, when it’s almost at its perihelion whilst we’re in range. It’s about 5 kilometres across in size, and unusually, it’s blue – the majority of comets tend to be reddish, or grey. It travels at about 40,000 miles an hour, and the surface appears to be regolith. I’m quite excited, actually.” Qrow was staring at him. Ironwood was staring at the telescope.

“You don’t say,” Qrow finally responded, and Ironwood’s smile properly extended to his eyes when he looked up at him.

“Sorry. We all have our hobbies, don’t we? If you’re not too tired, you’re welcome to come back to my office when it’s later and see it for yourself.” Qrow took a drink from his flask, but then shook his head.

“Nah. I’m not the best kind of man to have around delicate equipment. And no offence, General, but I’m not sure you and I are really about to start hanging out in a ‘friendly’ way.” Qrow’s voice had become drawling by the end of his sentence. Ironwood sighed a little.

“If you change your mind after dinner, the offer will stay open. I’ll be here. The night sky view from here, even without the telescope, is wonderful. I imagine it is from Beacon Tower, too.”

“You’re inviting me to dinner? Slow down, Jim.” Qrow smirked and sipped his drink. Ironwood rolled his eyes.

“James. And, you don’t survive on air and alcohol alone, unless I’ve missed something? Dinner in the Great Hall, with the staff and students. You can see the other portraits.” Ironwood checked his scroll for the time. “It’s at eighteen hundred, so we’ve got just under an hour. I suppose we ought to sit down, really. Would you like anything? A drink, perhaps?” Qrow considered the offer, and then slipped his flask into his pocket.

“Sounds good. You’re not gonna sit across the desk from me though, are you? All mean teacher telling off an errant student? Oh, Sir, I’ve been _ever_ so bad,” Qrow drawled. Ironwood laughed a little.

“I imagine you were a _very_ errant student. But, no, we’ll both sit this side. I’ll have your drink brought up.”

Ozpin was going to want to hear this for himself, Qrow thought as he sipped at brandy he’d never have bought for himself, but wasn’t surprised was popular in Atlas. These videos, these medical records, they looked impressive, and her psychological assessment read well – but Qrow was no expert. Just Oz’s messenger bird, really. Her name was Winter Schnee, and he’d point-blank refused to believe James at first, but she apparently didn’t get on with her father and was much more determined to become a Huntress because of it. She’d stated her desire to become a Specialist, and had been able to quote James’s own military history at him when he’d met her – she’d been almost starstruck, as if he was some sort of famous musician, rather than a solider. Only 19, finishing her second year, but leader of Team WSTR, Wisteria, and leaps ahead of many of her classmates. She was obviously very good, although why Ironwood thought she was _that_ good was a little unclear.

“Alright. I’ll bite. Why have you come to conclusion that some random kid – yeah, her stats are good, but not necessarily phenomenal – is the perfect candidate to try and give Fria’s powers?” Ironwood sipped at his iced water, condensation from the side of the glass running onto his fingers.

“Well. I like to be prepared, and as much as I trust Ozpin – you know I do – I simply think we all might be a little more comfortable with a little more solid planning. She’s young, she’d be loyal, she’s physically very skilled, and she’s mentally very steadfast. Fria… there’s no way of knowing when she could get worse. She’s had two heart attacks already, Qrow. If she lives another ten years I’d be more than surprised. I’m expecting five at best.” Ironwood’s voice was sympathetic as he spoke of the elderly Maiden. Qrow leant back in his chair.

“You know what he’ll say.”

“He’ll say it’s too early. I know. He told Feldgrau it wasn’t something that needed worrying about yet shortly before I became Headmaster. But I worry he’s… well, complacent is the wrong word. Ozpin isn’t complacent. I just think his mindset sometimes strays too far into the one of a man who has endless lives in which to do this. The rest of us just have this one.”

Was he right? Qrow wasn’t sure, to be honest. The issue was, to him, that they had other problems too, and Oz was focussing on them. Yeah, okay, Fria didn’t have all that long left, but at least they had her. At least she hadn’t escaped. Qrow was becoming increasingly more and more concerned, day by day, that when his searching through mountains and swamps and deserts did bring results, said results would be Spring’s corpse. Ozpin was worried the same. With a Maiden missing like that, was splitting concentration across multiple areas a good idea? Would more risk equal more reward, greater investment promise greater gains?

The last significantly unusual investment Ozpin had made, half of it was sitting here trying to figure this all out in his head, and the other half was leading her tribe in a desert in Anima. That was one reason amongst several why Qrow knew Ozpin wouldn’t want to focus on Winter until they had anything, anything at all, about Spring. Attention diverted for even a few weeks could cause fatal gaps in the communications to keep everyone informed and safe. Ozpin hadn’t even been happy that he couldn’t be here in Atlas himself right now, but he’d been busy at Beacon and Qrow was on Solitas anyway. Qrow sighed, finished his brandy, and ran a finger absently around the rim of the glass. It was a weird adjustment to him, actually, to even be having this sort of conversation with Ironwood. The last time they’d spoken in person, after all, Ironwood had been blissfully unaware of the enormous lingering evil and dangerous magic a hair’s breadth away from destroying them all, just like most everyone on Remnant. He seemed to be taking it well, for a man with two full-time jobs and PTSD.

“I mean, I don’t see why she couldn’t. But I also don’t see why it has to be done now. Wait until she graduates, until she’s one of your Spec Ops, even one of your Ace Ops, maybe, and choose then. When you know exactly what she can do, and can be 100% that she’ll be well-behaved, like a loyal little soldier.”

“We could train her more intensely, train her better, for longer. Get Fria to show her the powers while she can still stand for long enough to use them. Spar her against you, against me, against Ozpin, until she is the best of the best. Until she has the potential to be the strongest Maiden we’ve ever had. Make the battle a little more in our favour.” Qrow blew a breath out between pursed lips and put his empty glass down on the table.

“I hear you, James. I know what you’re saying. I get it, I do. But the fact is, Ozpin’s been doing this for longer than we can comprehend-”

“And progress hasn’t really been made. Something new is _necessary_ , Feldgrau knew it, but he’s not here any more to carry it on-”

“Something _new_ would be great, but surely you see that right now, we’d only be taking back the ground we’ve just lost? Spring had been told pretty early, and was trained well, and she’s flown from the nest. Fuckin’ worst case scenario, you train up a perfect Winter, and she runs scared too. I know what you want. We all want it. But Ozpin’s the real grandmaster here, and you can offer him all the strategies you want, but he will have already thought of them, and there’ll be a reason he’s not using them.” Ironwood sighed heavily.

“Just please. I’ll talk to Ozpin, when I can, of course, but please don’t go back to him having already decided not to argue my point just because you think he’ll immediately repudiate it. He obviously listens to you, Qrow. I’m somewhat at your mercy.” Qrow smirked.

“And just how short a supply do we all think that’s in, huh?”

Dinner in the hall at Atlas was more formal than it was at Beacon, that was for sure. For one, all the students were all in uniform; generally the Beacon kids had changed by then, although it was normal to see a mixture. The Atlesians also weren’t actually allowed to start eating until after a short readingy-gracey type thing, which James had said, stood behind his chair while every single other person in there was deadly silent. When everyone was eating, though, it did relax a little, the kids and staff chatting about their days, about whatever. Qrow stabbed a piece of glazed parsnip with his fork and practically swallowed it whole, then drank some of the white wine in his drinking glass. Ironwood had seen this, and seemed mildly amused.

“Birds just swallow their food whole, don’t they?” Ironwood asked him. “They tilt their head back to straighten out their throats and just consume insects whole.” Qrow looked at him.

“Are you implying something?”

“Not in the slightest. Although, I have to ask, have you ever eaten a worm?” Qrow laughed.

“I have, actually, yeah.” He stabbed the other piece of parsnip and ate it exactly the same as the first.

“What, you couldn’t turn back into a human for long enough to have a sandwich?” His voice was quiet enough that there was no way they’d be overheard. Qrow smiled knowingly.

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea. Tai found it on the ground outside our Grimm Studies classroom and dared me to eat it. It was still alive when I bit it in half. Wriggled a bit until I chewed it. High in protein, apparently.” Ironwood was staring at him. He didn’t say anything for a good twenty seconds. Qrow kept his expression nonchalant as he ate a forkful of mashed potato.

“You,” Ironwood eventually choked out, and Qrow really had to try hard not to fall apart laughing, “are quite possibly the worst person I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”

“You know, I get that a lot,” Qrow said, and maintained eye contact with the General as he put a piece of chicken coated in béchamel sauce in his mouth and didn’t chew it once before he swallowed it.

Qrow had really not intended this, he really hadn’t, but here he was. After dinner, he’d lingered with James in the hall, and been shown all the portraits, a space next to Feldgrau’s where James would go when finished. James had asked again about Qrow coming to see the asteroid – actually, Qrow wondered, was there a difference between an asteroid and a comet? Whatever – and Qrow had huffed a little, and much to his own surprise when he opened his mouth to answer he’d said ‘fine, if you want me so much’. James had been right, though, that the stars looked very, very nice from up here, and James had said something about the reskin of the office to fit his tastes would capture more of the moon-and-starlight and bring it in.

But, having sat next to a coffee table after a period of having constellations pointed out to him, Qrow was now watching in fascination as James very carefully let ice-cold water trickle over the sugar cube and through the pattern of the absinthe spoon, the green spirit going milky-opalescent as the drink mixed, and when the sugar was dissolved, James moved the spoon to the other glass and placed a fresh cube atop it, repeating the pouring process once more. When both drinks were ready, he set down the water carafe and moved the spoon onto the silver tray next to it, before taking his glass of properly-louched absinthe in his left hand. Qrow picked up his own, and gingerly drank some. It tasted of anise, fennel, and the eau de vie it must have been made from. It tasted expensive. It didn’t taste like something you drank because you were an alcoholic, but rather like something you drank to enjoy properly in fancy society. James sipped at his own, the simple thought of ‘it tastes of absinthe’.

“It’s somewhat of a hassle,” James said, “all rituals are, I suppose, but there’s something about the process of absinthiana that makes it feel worth it, if only for a single drink, before the water warms up.” Qrow nodded.

“It’s got its own charm, I guess. Feels a little more put-together than downing pints of cheap beer in a dark bar in Mantle. But you’re right it’s kind of a hassle. Ozpin’s absinthe shit hasn’t been touched in decades.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘accoutrements’, Qrow.”

“I think ‘absinthe shit’ gets the point across just fine.” James couldn’t help but laugh slightly.

“Well, you aren’t really wrong. It works. Would you like anything in the background? I can put music on.” Qrow considered the offer.

“You got anything by The Libertines?” James gave him a look.

“I have access to all of the music in the world, Qrow. Just because you have a collection of cassette tapes you refuse to give up,” James teased lightly, and then he tapped at his scroll with his still-gloved right hand, until the sound of _The Man Who Would Be King_ filled the office that was half-lit by hidden lights in the ceiling, and half by the moon that seemed too big to be real just outside the windows.

James was looking through the eyepiece of his telescope, and Qrow had brought over a chair so he could sit nearby. It was half past nine, and the two men had indeed not bothered with a second glass of absinthe, opting instead for the more easily prepared straight whiskey, James saying he didn’t mind, since it was Friday, after all. Qrow wouldn’t have called himself drunk, but he didn’t think he was sober. As to James’s state, he had no idea – James had had more whiskey than him, but also hadn’t been drinking slowly but constantly all day as Qrow tended to – and now wasn’t the time to ask. Now was barely a time for Qrow to _breathe_ , as he was very much concentrated on making sure his Semblance didn’t fuck anything up.

“Astronomy needs a lot of waiting, then, huh?”

“Mmm,” James hummed without moving away from the telescope for a single moment, “but we can hardly expect the heavens to behave according to our whims, can we? Thank the Brothers that the night is clear. I think I would have had to shoot myself if there was cloud cover.”

“Dramatic, aren’t you?”

“I’d have to wait more than _forty years_ to see it again, Qrow. Realistically, what would the chance even be of me making it that long?”

“Eh, you’re resilient. Although maybe if you took more time to de-stress, you wouldn’t be at such a risk of your blood pressure killing you off early.”

“Well, that’s what I’m doing now, isn’t it? De-stressing. This isn’t work. This is a joy.”

“Took a lot of kinematics for something you consider a joy,” Qrow muttered in response. James made a soft noise of amusement, almost a laugh, but he wouldn’t risk bumping himself against the instrument. Qrow sipped his drink.

“Oh, my,” James said, breaking a few minutes of silence save for the music (they’d moved on to Kasabian by now), and Qrow finished his drink as he watched the General start to smile, “Qrow, I got the angle right.”

“I should hope so, you used six sheets of paper’s worth of trajectory calculus to help work it out,” Qrow replied, but couldn’t help but smile a little as he said it. He reached behind himself for the whiskey bottle and poured more into his glass, before replacing it and watching James. He’d shifted position slightly so that he could carefully adjust the telescope to track the comet across the sky.

“Come here, come here, come and look at it,” James said, and Qrow rose from his seat and went and stood close to the General, who physically manoeuvred Qrow until he was stood in a way he’d be able to use the eyepiece, since it was at a more convenient height for the somewhat taller James. James lifted his head up, and gestured for Qrow to look through the instrument. Qrow did so, and it took his vision a second to adjust to the change in what he was seeing, but then being able to see the burning rock against the backdrop of blackness, and he grinned.

“Okay, yeah, it’s cool, I admit.”

“And now you’ve seen a proper comet through a proper telescope. Astronomers in the other kingdoms would be very jealous you got this view. Atlas is lucky tonight.”

“Well, we are what, ten kilometres closer to it then them?” James laughed slightly as Qrow looked up at him.

“Yes, I suppose being on a floating island is sort of cheating. But this is genuinely fantastic. Wow.” He adjusted the telescope slightly and drained his whiskey before leaning down to look at the comet again. Qrow took the liberty of refilling his glass for him.

James, apparently, got a little more talkative once you got some alcohol in him (which Qrow was definitely encouraging) and most of it had been about space. Qrow was quite happy to sit back and listen – the General had a nice voice, the topic was interesting enough, and Qrow was getting to a point of intoxication where soon if he tried to say a sentence, it would come out as just a few long slurred-together words. He felt like he’d probably learned something, something about apsis and aphelion, about stars and supernovas, whatever. He could take a pop quiz in the morning and see if he’d retained any of it.

“Wait, wait, question. If you like space so much,” Qrow hiccupped slightly before continuing, “why isn’t like, your _thing_ about space? Oz has got his clocks and time thing going on, what about you?”

“It’s just a hobby, really-”

“You know a lot for a hobby-”

“Even Atlas doesn’t have a space force, though,” James said, and drank his newest whiskey in one, breathing deliberately against the warmth and burn, “just a land army. Grimm are more important than aliens,” he continued, sounding a little dismayed, “but it’s one of the things I am, uh, I’ve included in the redesign of this office. Stars, not aliens.” Qrow nodded, sipping his own drink. He used his free hand to pass James the whiskey bottle.

“Yeah, guess it’s good you’ve got something to do that isn’t work. ‘cause you have a hell of a lot of that. You’re all business, James,” and James laughed.

“Not _all_ business.”

“Yeah, you are. Pretty sure if people could read your mind, it’d sound like a goddamn propaganda reel of ‘Atlesian values’,” Qrow said with exaggerated air quotes from his empty hand.

“That’s not true. I do think for myself, you know. Atlas isn’t some hive-mind dystopia, no matter what you think.” Qrow snorted softly.

“Nah? So you aren’t a pro-SDC, anti-tails, traditional family kind of guy?” James rolled his eyes, although his words felt thick and unwieldy.

“Jacques Schnee is an unpleasant man, and the SDC is definitely not white-as-white. I wish there was no fighting between the Humans and the Faunus, but it’s not something I can make go away overnight. And I don’t… I don’t mind who you kiss. It’s just not talked about in the army at all.” James wondered if that was a good enough response for Qrow. He seemed to consider it for a few seconds, but then nodded.

“I guess you can’t fix everyone’s problems, Headmaster-General-Team Leader-Prodigal Son Ironwood, can you?” That was the last mildly intelligent sentence Qrow thought he’d be able to manage. “Army thing sucks, though. Why I like being a free bird, huh?” James looked at Qrow.

“You’re… you date men and women, don’t you?” Qrow scratched at his stubble.

“You won’t die if you say the word ‘bisexual’, Jimmy. Although I’ve never actually dated a guy yet. Unless you count my what-fuckin’-ever with Ozpin now as dating. Fucked guys, but I’ve only ever dated girls. Not that I’m one for holding down relationships. You? Don’t tell me you’re a virgin or some shit.” James laughed a little. He could feel his neurotransmitter essentially having an argument with his flesh side about his blood’s alcohol level.

“No, but I’ve never dated anyone for more than two years. I’ve had two girlfriends, and several more… _flings_.”

“No guys?” Qrow probed, grinning audaciously. James shook his head.

“I don’t… I’m not gay. Or bisexual.”

“But you’re hot.”

“You’re drunk.”

“So are you, else you’d never have talked about this shit. And hey, at least I’m not telling you I love you and wanna marry you or some shit. Shoot me if I ever do.”

Qrow was sat on James’s desk swinging his legs back and forth, and James was sat in his proper chair where he sat to do important work, except Qrow was in the space where he’d normally put his paperwork down. They’d both carried on drinking and James cursed when he looked at the time.

“Qrow, I need,” James hiccupped slightly ( _that_ was a bad sign of how much he’d imbibed, he thought to himself), “I need to go to bed or I’ll not wake up in the morning.” Qrow furrowed his brow like he’d just been given a question about quantum physics.

“Huh? But it’s the weekend. Why’ve you gotta get outta bed early?”

“Because I still have to work. Come on. We can have another drink in my lounge before I go to sleep. You can do what you want.”

“I do like doing what I want,” and Qrow slid forward off the desk, his legs brushing against James’s as he steadied himself. “You gotta lead the way, Atlas is fuckin’ confusing.”

James’s quarters, and hence lounge, which it was rather than a ‘living room’ – it was a little too cool and art deco to be a cozy living room – was on the eastern side of the campus, and James had fetched him and Qrow each a bourbon from the kitchen, since they’d finished the whiskey in his office. He returned to find Qrow sprawled over the sofa, long limbs draped over the sides, and James laughed at him. Qrow watched as James took off his overcoat, then his undercoat, and pulled his tie from around his neck, draping them onto the – what was that kind of furniture called? An ottoman? – saying something about how he really should hang them up, but then he proceeded not to and stood in front of Qrow, telling him to move. Laughter bubbled up from Qrow’s chest and he rolled himself into a strange half-sitting position to give James room to sit down.

“Why’d’ya only wear one glove, Jimmy? Why don’t you just wear both?” Qrow was lying on his back, taking up two thirds of the sofa (his knees were bent over the end to accommodate this), the tips of his hair touching the side of James’s thigh, since James was sat in the remaining third.

“I don’t like the way it feels on my skin. I wear two for formal uniform, but normally, I just want to cover… it.”

“I think ‘iiit’ is pretty cool.”

“Huh,” James replied, and he took off the glove covering his metal hand. His right side was the side closer to Qrow; Qrow reached behind his own head and took James’s wrist, tugging his arm out so the metal hand was directly in Qrow’s line of sight. James flexed his artificial fingers.

“Yeah, very cool. The whole side of you’s been replaced, right?” James, oddly, didn’t get the slight tremble in his left side he did normally when conversation turned to his accident. He guessed it was the alcohol, maybe the company of a Huntsman who he knew couldn’t care less, but the bad feelings weren’t as overwhelming as they could be.

Is this why Qrow drank all day every day?

James blinked himself back to the present.

“Yes, the whole right side. It was two injuries, one that took my arm and a large chunk of my torso, and then the second that took most of my hip and leg. The hip joint wasn’t salvageable, although some of the flesh remains, just around an artificial joint. My spine is also artificial, running under the flesh of my neck.” The standard explanation he gave, almost word-for-word, if he had to talk about it. Qrow was silent for a minute. He moved his own hands from James’s wrist, over his black jumper, onto his hand, touching the metal. It was warmer than Qrow had expected it to be.

“D’you have nightmares?” Qrow asked.

“Yes,” James replied, his mouth a little dry, and he took a sip of his drink with his left hand, the one Qrow wasn’t holding hostage. Qrow was nodding.

“It’s what’s in your head that gets you,” Qrow said, voice barely more than a whisper. James looked down at him.

James was stood in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom. Qrow was lying on his back on the bed, body mostly on it but his head hanging back over the edge. He was watching James. Upside-down. James took off his jumper.

“Weren’t lyin’bout the whole torso thing, were ya?” Qrow drawled. James shook his head. He felt quite happy, considering he had his robotic side exposed. He didn’t normally like that. The doctors had said he’d get more and more used to it with time.

“It would be a pointless lie, wouldn’t it?” Qrow scoffed.

“Eh, lying and cheating. Important skills.” James twisted round and looked down at Qrow, eyebrows raised, although he couldn’t hide his slight smile. Qrow poured the last of his bourbon into his mouth and swallowed it (hard, since his head was literally upside-down) and congratulated himself on not spilling it. James laughed. Qrow continued:

“Yeah, important skills. Just don’t get caught and it’s all good, right?”

“That’s probably not the way you should think about it,” James answered, picking up his own bourbon from where he’d put it on the dresser and finishing it. Qrow shrugged, but because of his position, this served to move him a little more down the bed, and his head was now only millimetres above the floor. He giggled.

“Lots of things I think about in a way I shouldn’t be thinkin’ about’em,” Qrow said, still half-laughing when a wave of nausea hit him like a train, and he was hyper-aware of the blood rush in his head from his position, and he groaned and was vaguely aware of James asking him if he was okay-

Qrow was propped up on James’s bed, the pillows behind him keeping him away from the wall, and for a minute he couldn’t understand where he was and why he was alone and his mind was working overdrive to try and figure it out-

_‘you said the wrong things, you have made someone worry’_

_‘desperate for help and attention, fucking pathetic’_

_‘so now where are you, which game are you playing today?’_

_‘everyone around you has left you and you made them do it’_

The bedroom door opened and James came in and Qrow’s head made a lot more sense, and he forced himself to grin at the General. Can’t have him worry.

“You almost had me w-worried,” James said, slightly slurred and tripping over syllables, and it made Qrow laugh.

“No more upsidey-downy, my head didn’t like it, I don’t think,” Qrow replied, looking at James, who was holding two fresh glasses each with a measure of bourbon, and he’d swapped his uniform trousers for standard-issue Atlas Academy sweats.

“Then stay upright. Easier to drink anyway. But this is my last one, I have to go to sleep.” Qrow tilted his head.

“Aww, really? No more?”

“We’ve had a lot, Qrow,” and the men looked at each other and both laughed. Qrow took his drink from James and winked at him before drinking it in one (it was maybe a measure and a half?). James blinked a little before taking a breath and doing the same, managing it without spluttering at the burn, although he was less practiced than Qrow.

James had put music on again, and it took Qrow entirely too long to recognise The Cure, and the topic had gone to the Atlesian Military, James saying about how he was proud of it and worried of making mistakes and Qrow telling him he was a good little solider boy and asking if the girls he’d slept with were junior officers.

“I’m not really allowed to do that,” James answered him.

“Doesn’t actually ans’r the question, though? Not’llowed, but did’ya?” James laughed.

“Well, how else could I h-have met them?” Qrow laughed.

“But’ya really never touched another guy?”

“No. Not really meant t’do that either.” Qrow looked entirely too thoughtful for how drunk he was.

“You should. Life’xperience. We know what we’re doing. And you’d find someone like _that._ ” Qrow clicked, failed to make a noise, laughed and clicked again.

“Really? I think the prosthetics make it difficult,” James half-lamented. Qrow shrugged.

“Those people are just assholes. You’re attractive. Really fuckin’ annoying. But hot.” James cracked the knuckles of his left hand and looked at Qrow.

“Thank you? I think? I don’t strive f-for annoying-”

“You manage it,” Qrow interrupted.

Qrow was lying on his front, James still sitting up next to him. Qrow had shed most of his clothes, just lying in his boxers. It was 2am.

“Your bag is in the other bedroom. Ozpin sent it over. Or did you forget pyjamas?”

“Shut up, James. I’m comfy. Do I gotta sleep in the other room? I like having company.”

“My alarm’ll wake you if-f you stay here,” James said. Qrow pouted dramatically (he batted away a bad thought about how he was here, _acting up for attention_ in front of a man his age). James rolled his eyes and laughed.

“I’ll be good. I’ll get up with ya. Be your little birdie on your shoulder,” Qrow said through a laugh.

“B’cause that wouldn’t be conspicuous,” James replied, and Qrow’s eyes glittered.

“I’ll blow you if you let me stay.”

“Branwen!” James reacted quite bodily, almost flinching, and Qrow laughed, rolling awkwardly off the bed and standing up on unsteady legs.

“I’m going to get changed. I’ll come back to say g’night. Offer will still be there,” and Qrow winked before he walked out.

Qrow woke up to a sound he definitely recognised, but couldn’t figure out. He was lying on a bed, just in his boxers, and the curtains weren’t shut, allowing him to tell it was still dark. He was tipsy, but he’d just woken up from a nap. Okay, that’s fine, what time was it? Just before 4am. Okay, that’s fine, what’s that noise? He stood himself up and shivered. He was cold. He saw the silhouette of his bag in the corner and he went over to it, pulling things out haphazardly until he found his sweatpants and a t-shirt, putting them on, a meagre defence against the cold. He left the bedroom he was in – as long as nothing drastic had happened, James’s guest room, he knew that much – and emerged into the corridor, and following the source of the noise. He didn’t have to go far; it from was James’s room. The noise wasn’t crying, but that’s what it made him think of. He didn’t get it instantly.

“Jimmy, you okay?” Qrow got no reply, and the noise carried on, so he pushed open the door.

James was sitting cross-legged in the centre of his bed, a long-sleeved white t-shirt on, a glove covering his metal hand, still in his sweatpants, still with socks on. He was breathing hard, and fast. Too hard, too fast. Qrow needed him to calm down.

“Hey, Jimmy, you’re panicking, it’s good, it’s good, calm down. You’ll knock yourself out hyperventilating.” James’s eyes were wide, and Qrow cursed the fact he was still kind of pissed. He couldn’t tell if James still felt drunk. Qrow took a few steps forward, and James didn’t react badly, so Qrow took a few more until he could kneel on the bed next to James. He didn’t presume to touch him.

“So, is it gonna work on you if I try and getcha to copy my breathing, or am I here to be eye candy until you calm down?” James’s harsh rhythm slowed a fraction, and Qrow tried his best to look reassuring. Distraction. He could be a distraction.

“Does it always drop to minus fucking forty at night in this place, or have I come on a bad day? Y’know, I just woke up, and for a minute, I swear my nipples were inside me. Maybe we should move this island off Solitas. Some of Anima gets pretty fuckin’ hot. Reckon anyone would notice if we just took Atlas on vacation?” James didn’t take a breath for a few seconds, and his next one was longer and slower. It’d be okay. Qrow tentatively reached out a hand and laid it on James’s left shoulder. James didn’t throw him off, so Qrow rubbed little circles into James’s shoulder with his thumb.

“You’ve got massive shoulders. You realise that. But not massive enough to hold everything up, James. It’s all good if you take a break. Even if the break is to do really fucking hard mathematics and look at the sky like a nerd.” Qrow wasn’t certain, but he thought James had just tried to laugh. Even if it wasn’t a laugh, it was another break from the horrible, forced fast breaths.

It took ten minutes for James to calm enough to speak.

“Qrow,” he said, his voice a little weak, “I’m sorry for distressing you.” Qrow rolled his eyes.

“You haven’t. You’ve distressed yourself, though. I’m just glad you aren’t freaking out any more.” James nodded before replying.

“I almost fell asleep after I checked on you and found you had passed out on your bed. But then, my metal hand brushed the real side of my abdomen, and I realised I’d been sitting talking without a shirt on, and I couldn’t cope, so I had to cover it up, and then I couldn’t fall asleep. Thank you for calming me.” Qrow shook his head gently, and finally took his hand off of James’s shoulder.

“You calmed yourself. What time’s your alarm?”

“Zero six-hundred. What time is it now?”

“About four.” James groaned.

“I’d better try, I suppose.”

“Yeah. I can stay here, if you want. I’m still kinda… fucked.” James shook his head.

“No. I mean, thank you for the offer, but I would prefer you go back to your room.” Qrow looked at James, but struggled to discern anything from his expression.

“Okay,” Qrow said, unsure, “but what’s to stop you from just panicking again?” James smiled grimly.

“Determination? No, now I have my prosthetics covered and have spoken to you a little more sober, I’ll survive.”

“Right. Okay. Do you want some water or something?” Qrow asked as he stood from the bed.

“No, really, go to bed. You need to sleep too. Do as you please tomorrow. We can visit Fria in the evening.”

Qrow woke up, tired and just generally feeling a little battered, at midday. He wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, but it wasn’t going to happen. He stood, feeling a little awkward in his movements, and wandered out of his bedroom. He glanced briefly into James’s room, but it was empty (and looked as if it had never been used in its existence; the bed was so tightly made it seemed to ripple with Qrow’s breathing). In the lounge, James’s coats and tie were gone, and there was also no evidence they’d been drinking in here last night. In the kitchen, there was a scroll Qrow didn’t think was James’s, and he was right – it responded to his thumbprint, although absolutely everything on it was just on the default setting. There was a single message, from James.

_‘Qrow,_   
_this scroll will be your keycard around the Academy and the military base, instead of me authorising your personal one. You can go anywhere, just don’t abuse that. Stored in the contacts are numbers for food, dry cleaning, and of course emergency services, in addition to myself, and all five of my Ace Ops. In the notes, you’ll find the timetable of the Academy, and a map. Harbinger is in the room you haven’t been in yet, just next to the front door. Please treat my quarters as if they were your own. Thank you for aiding me last night; I owe you a debt. I shall be on the base all day if you need me before we visit Winter tonight._   
_Please give my regards to Ozpin.’_

He read it a few times over. It was formal, naturally, although Qrow maybe got a sense Ironwood was trying to avoid him. There wasn’t anything he could do, particularly – so he just went into the kitchen, tidy as a showroom model, and poked around in cupboards until he found something he wanted. Strawberry milkshake mix. Well, strawberry protein shake mix, but it would do. Food-wise, he wasn’t really very hungry, so he decided he’d survive for now just on the milkshake, then made up a glass of it and went into the bathroom to stare himself down and hopefully find some paracetamol.

The mirrored cupboard above the sink contained no medication, so Qrow checked the freestanding chest of drawers in the corner, and was greeted with enough medication to sedate a small elephant. Qrow was impressed. There was serious stuff in here, stuff that was very addicting, most of it for pain control, and he supposed most of it was left over from Ironwood’s surgery a few years ago, although there were also some other things that he didn’t really know why the General had them. This, he thought as he poked a box, normally treats Parkinson’s, and this one treats arthritis, but his best guess was they were prescribed off-label. As it were, Qrow ignored the serious stuff and simply took some aspirin, washing it down with the milkshake and trying to leave the drugs cupboard the way he’d found it.

After a brief shower, and drying himself with a towel he’d found in the spare room’s wardrobe, he dressed (his clean clothes smelled like the dry cleaner’s Ozpin used in Vale) and took his own prescription, which had changed from Xanax to Valium a year or so ago. Ironwood was on his mind. He’d been trying not to think about it too hard, but he was running out of ways to avoid it – last night had really gone in a direction neither of them had expected, and sober, neither of them would have particularly wanted. It could have been worse, Qrow supposed, but it definitely wasn’t good. He’d been too drunk, he’d run his mouth a little, and the General had triggered his own PTSD after letting Qrow see him shirtless. And then he’d had some kind of panic attack in front of Qrow. Qrow was irritated with himself. He’d put Ironwood into this situation. They weren’t even _friends_ , for fuck’s sake. He didn’t want the man to suffer, but the fact remained-

_This wouldn’t be like this if Qrow hadn’t started it._

If he hadn’t had too much, Ironwood wouldn’t have drunk as much to keep pace, and then they wouldn’t have gotten into the situation they were now in. Which was…

Qrow wasn’t entirely sure. What _was_ this situation he was stressing himself over? He felt responsible for what Ironwood had done. But Ironwood was an adult, surely him drinking was his own responsibility? Qrow also felt a little uncomfortably voyeuristic. Not as such from seeing Ironwood’s prosthetics, but from seeing him upset like that. He just felt _awkward_. Good going, Qrow, awkward too-intimate-when-you-still-call-him-by-surname-in-your-head relationship with the most powerful man in Atlas was _definitely_ where he wanted to be. But there was nothing he could do; his hangover was tame thanks to the nap he’d had before his main sleep, when his liver had been able to metabolise better, and perhaps that’s why his feelings were acting up instead of just being numb. Awkward. Uncomfortable.

He left the milkshake glass in the kitchen sink, and went to fetch Harbinger. The room by the front door turned out to be a workshop, of sorts, and it had more personality than the rest of the rooms put together: hand-drawn schematics tacked onto the walls, bits and pieces of metal and shell casings and boxes with vials of Gravity Dust sitting around the place, some photographs tacked onto the sketching desk. He recognised one of them because he had a copy of it; it was a photograph of Ironwood and his Atlas Academy teammates taken on their graduation day, and Ironwood had sent four copies to Team STRQ. Raven had scoffed and not even bothered to take her copy, Tai’s had gotten lost sometime in the last decade or so, Summer’s was inside a scrapbook she’d kept meticulously right until she died, and Qrow’s was in his small box of important trinkets (mostly shiny things) that was currently living in Ozpin’s office.

Qrow had been looking at the photographs for a while, now. There was one that seemed to depict Ironwood in the uniform of – was that a Specialist or an Ace Operative? – so presumably from some sort of event. There was a photograph of Ironwood and Feldgrau together, from before Feldgrau had really fallen ill at the very end, and Ironwood wasn’t in a uniform at all: he was dressed in brown slacks, a beige turtleneck and a brown blazer, formal casualwear. And there was one at the bottom, in a corner you could miss it, taken in a hospital, depicting what anyone would have assumed was a corpse, since what was left of Ironwood’s body was minimal and it was definitely not a good sign that you could see a torn part of one of his lungs and damaged intestines spilling onto the stretcher he was on, and Brothers, they’d worked fucking miracles on him to keep him alive, hadn’t they? A medical marvel.

Qrow wasn’t surprised Ironwood had nightmares. He sighed, walked out of the workshop with Harbinger, and left the quarters after checking he had both his scrolls and his flask. As he emerged into the chilly, bright early afternoon, for a second he couldn’t comprehend why Ironwood had a small, dimly-lit, low-tech workroom in his quarters when immediately outside were the most extraordinary buildings on Remnant, but just as quickly as the question came, the answer did, and it was exactly the same reason Qrow kept some of his habits. Not the drinking, not the smoking, no, the more innocent things – napping on the sofa in Ozpin’s office if he felt bad, getting Yang to explain the rules of ‘Guess Who?’ to him every single time he dropped in to visit, still leaving a window unlocked in Huntsmens’ inns in case Raven came to speak to him, it was all for the same reasons.

Comfort. Familiarity. As everything around him falls apart and breaks, all Qrow wanted was to cling on to everything, but he couldn’t have everything, so he settled for what he could have. This is why, he thought as he strolled down the centre of the Academy concourse, getting more than a few looks from the students, it was so jarring that last night had run so contrary to expectation. He realised it now. Familiarity was him being Oz’s barely-leashed attack dog, who only held his tongue from attacking Ironwood for the sake of his master’s good graces. Change was him and Ironwood realising they had more in common than they thought and not knowing what to do about it. Change was scary. Breakdown was scary. Maybe not the action of it actually happening, but the idea that he’d either going to have to put it all back together again, or just live with the pieces forever after.

Ironwood lost his body, but that also represented a loss of other things, too. Loss of sleep. Loss of peace. Loss of security. And any time he was forced to see the physical body he’d lost, it brought up everything else, too, the more sinister things that lingered in his mind and wouldn’t leave him alone. Qrow knew what it was like. He was pretty sure he’d actually said something like that to Ironwood in his drunken state.

There was nothing he could do for Ozpin while he was here, other than amble around and hope to overhear someone saying something like ‘by the way, did you see that runaway girl using magic?’, so Qrow supposed he could do what he wanted. He passed out through the gates of the Academy into the streets of the actual city.

Comfort. Familiarity.

Qrow walked past the first bar he saw and went into a bookshop, instead.


	6. ‘Once upon a time, I’d have drank to that.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes: I rewrote this epilogue several times. In the first one, Qrow gave a long, prepared speech to each of RWBY. Second draft, he gave a general speech to all of RWBY and then went off and I didn’t get any further. This one is much better, trust me. I even considered having Qrow recount his fight in the Vytal Festival with Team JRRH to RWBY because I really wanted to write that, but instead I may publish that as a standalone.
> 
> This whole story was a hard thing to write. I hope I've done it justice.

There was a bird perched on the outside windowsill when Team RWBY came back to their dorm room.

Blake was the one who crossed to the window and opened it enough for the crow, head-feathers ruffled by the wind outside, to come in and land on top of the bookshelf. It stretched its wings to their full span and a small amount of dust and dirt was shaken free from amongst the feathers. It then crowed softly three times, and glided down from the shelf, and Qrow stood up in the middle of the girls’ room.

“Hey,” he said coolly.

“You know,” Yang said, “there isn’t some kind of forcefield on the door that would stop you from using it.”

“Yeah, but to use the door, I’d have to come inside and walk up all the stairs. This way I can just get straight in from being outside.”

“Someday, somebody’s going to notice,” Weiss chided him. Qrow laughed a little.

“Really? You think so? Because I think if someone saw it, they’d assume they’d made a mistake, and that their eyes were playing tricks on them, not that they just watched a man turn into a bird by using ancient magic bestowed upon him by the world’s dumbest wizard. Besides, d’you think Raven doesn’t just use this power to intimidate people? To make them think she’s special?”

“Well, I mean, turning into a bird is kinda special, to be honest,” Ruby half-answered. Qrow huffed, and walked across the room to her, before he jabbed the tip of his finger against the end of her nose. She squealed lightly.

“Y’know, girlies, when I’m talking and using rhetorical questions, you aren’t supposed to try and answer me. You’re just supposed to look at me in awe, all ‘oh, this man! He’s so smart, so wise, how could we have ever doubted this god amongs-”

“You smashed into the glass of the window at top speed yesterday. You’ve been coming in through that window for _weeks_. There’s still a smear from the weird gunk from your bird eyes. How is that _wise_?” Yang said, and Qrow stared at her for a good ten seconds in total silence, before throwing his hands up in surrender with a grunt. He took Harbinger from his back and leant it against the wall, and then sat down on the carpet with his legs crossed, cupping his chin in his hands and looking as grumpy as possible.

Ruby had sat on the floor next to Qrow, Weiss had brought one of the desk chairs closer and settled into it, and Blake and Yang had both settled into the cubby of Blake’s bed, Yang taking up a good three quarters of the space and Blake happily curled in the remaining part. He’d asked them about their day; they’d told him how their training had gone, updated him on JNR and Oscar, complained for a little bit about Atlas compared to Vale and just overall reflected on their situation. Where they were, Amity, the Relics, the Maiden problems. Qrow felt like a responsible grown-up, listening to them all.

“I just can’t believe somewhere we all fought in,” Weiss, while she respected the importance of the Colosseum project, wasn’t the greatest fan, “somewhere that was something for us to do as students, for the ‘enrichment of youth in the kingdoms’ and everything, is now being totally gutted and repurposed into something so… well, I don’t mean boring, I just mean-” Qrow held up a hand and Weiss paused.

“Say it, say it, you’re right. Compared to an awesome Tournament stage with a kickass history, it’s going to be pretty much inaccessible and full of wiring. Sucks ass. Good memories of that place. Well, mostly,” he added, and glanced at Yang, who rolled her eyes. Qrow had found himself shocked how well Yang was coping, compared to the last memories of when they spent time together, back before he’d left the house again to follow RNJR across a continent. Blake seemed to help.

“I wish it hadn’t ended the way it did, kids. You should have got to win that Tournament.” There was a brief silence as a wistful mournfulness passed around the room. Ruby then broke it.

“Like you won yours?” Ruby asked. Qrow laughed and shook his head.

“I barely did shit. It was Tai, Tai did good. I can’t even remember the name of the girl he beat to win. I was only in two fights the whole Festival. Tai won six, three all by himself.” Yang looked at him.

“You were in two? Weren’t you only in one?” She asked. Qrow tapped his nose as if he was keeping a great secret, but then laughed again.

“We did an exhibition fight at the start of the Festival, and then when the Tournament started, I was in my other.”

“We didn’t have to do an exhibition fight,” Blake said.

“Nah, I think they decided it was too tiring for the kids who’d do it, and gave them a tactical disadvantage when the actual Tournament started. But, it was in Atlas, and Atlas are all about the show, as you can see all around you. Weather was absolute shit for the whole festival. Still,” Qrow said, and he leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially, “I got to kick Ironwood’s ass back when he was all flesh, which was pretty sweet.” Ruby and Yang laughed, Blake shook her head and giggled a little, and Weiss tried to look disapproving before bursting into loud giggles of her own.

The routine they – Qrow, RWBY, JNR and Oscar – had settled into at Atlas was a comfortable one. Days of missions, training or occasionally a bit of both, meals in the school’s hall (sometimes Ironwood and the Ace Ops were there, or other members of the military who also taught at the school, but sometimes they’d take meals in the army mess hall instead), and either a little bit more training after dinner, or more often, just relaxing, the exception being if they had to leave late for a mission, rather than early. Sometimes, Qrow would spend his evenings with the kids, although he was conscious he didn’t want to force himself on them, since he was their parents’ age. Otherwise, he went and sat with James, who’d usually be working these days until around midnight and then managed at best five hours of sleep before his 0530 reveille. Or sometimes he took the evening for himself.

Tonight, however, he initially chose none of those options. When JNR and Oscar had arrived at RWBY’s door, Nora carrying Cards Against Humanity (and Ren carrying her four expansion packs), he’d excused himself – they invited him to play, saying it’d be fun, but he’d looked Yang in the eye with a smirk on his face, before quoting from the game:

“What never fails to liven up the party? Sitting on my face and calling me garbage.” Qrow could only see RWBY in his peripheral vision; Weiss hid her giggling with a hand, as did Blake, Yang pressed the base of her hand against her forehead, and Ruby gave a little squeal of ‘Uncle Qrow!’. Qrow’s smile grew wider.

“See? I’m too old to join in you guys playing this game. I’d just win because you’d be too embarrassed. Ruby, say the words ‘Blowing my boyfriend so hard he shits himself’.” Yang started laughing too, and Ruby squealed again before giggling herself. Qrow had left, seeing that JNR were all amused (Oscar was quite pink; he was definitely the most awkward of the kids, partly because he was the youngest but also because he’d just spent less of his life around other teenagers) on his way out and waving behind him.

He’d walked down through the Academy until he reached doors that he had to use his scroll to let himself through, and then walked further until he was deep into the military section of the buildings. He was a little more familiar with this set of corridors, since he lived in the military dorms, rather than the student dorms, so he could afford to look down at his scroll as he walked, checking his bank account and finding himself pleasantly surprised, and he realised he’d passed the door he’d been aiming for by the time he’d logged out of his account, so he cursed and retraced his steps a little. Passing through another door he had to identify himself for, he followed stairs down into a room full of lockers and benches, with doors leading off either side to showers, but he ignored it and walked straight through, emerging into the large gym.

This wasn’t a combat gym, or one of the many simulation rooms, it was just a regular gym – very high-tech equipment, naturally, but all the staples, treadmills and bikes and rowers and a wall covered in weights, as well as some more unusual things, including an extensive suspension trainer and a smith machine. Qrow scanned the room, not that many people in it. This place almost got treated as if it was purely recreational, since many of the soldiers did enough exercise in simulated mountains and valleys and whatever else they wanted in the training areas, which Qrow thought was kind of a shame. Still, it made what he was here for easier.

Clover was dressed in pale grey shorts, a white sleeveless t-shirt with the logo of Atlas in dark grey on the back and damp around his neck, and trainers that were probably worth a small fortune. He still had his bandana tied around his left arm. He was stood with his back to Qrow, and opposite Marrow, who was dressed identically to Clover, minus the bandana, although the hem of his shirt was displaced a little, probably accommodating his tail. Between the two were two stacked plyo boxes, the numbers on the side adding to mean it was 38” high. Qrow watched as Clover bent his knees and then jumped, clearing the edge of the box by only a few centimetres, but landing securely with a satisfying thud. He straightened up, before bending his knees again and jumping backwards, and Qrow wasn’t all that surprised when Clover tucked himself in and turned the jump into a backflip, which he came out of perfectly.

This seemed to mean it was Marrow’s turn, and Qrow watched him jump up too, and there was a worrying moment as one of Marrow’s heels lightly grazed the edge of the plyo box, but while his landing wasn’t as comfortable as Clover’s, he still balanced and straightened himself up. Qrow could see Marrow more clearly now, and his shirt was sweaty too. Marrow didn’t jump down as immediately as Clover, instead staying still and breathing for a few seconds. Then, Marrow copied Clover, jumping back from the box and tumbling backwards, landing a metre back, and Qrow saw Marrow’s tail wag a little at the side of his waist, presumably pleased with the landing. Marrow held up a hand to Clover, asking for pause, and walked to the side of the room, and picked up a bottle of water. Qrow took the opportunity to approach.

“Higher than standard, isn’t it?” Qrow asked, and Clover turned at the sound of his voice, “I thought plyos normally went up to thirty for a reason?” Clover smiled, and stepped backwards, before sitting himself on the box, hands behind him propping himself up.

“Ah, I could do thirty when I was thirteen,” Clover said. His voice only betrayed a fraction of his exertion. “And the higher you jump, the easier it is to back tuck back down. But yeah, it’s higher than standard. It’s why we have stackable sets,” and Qrow went to ask a question that Clover answered before Qrow could even open his mouth, “they’re secured with Velcro. They won’t come apart, unless maybe you were to catch under the top one on your way up. But then you’re seriously overestimating your own ability.” Marrow came back over, and smiled at Qrow. He’d hung a towel around his neck.

“Hi. Clover was just… well, he wanted to work out, and so did I, so we came together. He’s awesome for motivation. Even if he’s way better at all of this than me,” Marrow said. Clover laughed.

“You give me too much credit. Now, what’s the towel for? You think we’re done?” Clover said. Marrow’s tail, which had been softly bobbing behind him, dropped a little and stilled.

“We aren’t? You said we were going to finish at nine-”

“And that clock over there reads twenty fifty six, doesn’t it? Drop the towel and get on the box,” Clover said. Qrow smirked.

“Listen to your boss, kid,” and Marrow grumbled a little under his breath, but obediently threw his towel over to the side of the room and stood at the side of the plyo, Clover shimmying off it.

The next four minutes made Qrow feel tired just to watch. Clover shouted in rhythm for Marrow to match, to jump onto the box and layout flip back off it. Marrow fell out of sync with Clover’s instruction after two and a half minutes, but all Clover did was yell louder, telling Marrow to pick his pace up if he knew what was good for him, and Marrow had tried his best to obey. Qrow could see the sheen on Marrow’s forehead, and the way his thighs trembled as he landed and squatted to immediately prepare his next jump, but he was clearly skilled enough to keep it up and keep the form of his flip neat, else Qrow was certain Clover would have called him off early for safety. When Clover finally relented, Marrow stepped back and practically collapsed into a sitting position on the floor, panting.

“It isn’t your fitness, kid. You’re obviously good. It’s the repetition that gets you, isn’t it? Those muscles start to scream at you, and you just have to ignore them. Although I’m hardly a gym rat myself,” Qrow paused, hoping Marrow wouldn’t be offended by this, “gym puppy?” Qrow asked lightly, raising his tone. Marrow, thankfully, tilted his head and let out a short, breathy laugh, before reaching out for his water bottle. His fingertips didn’t reach it, but Clover was close enough to kick it over, and Marrow managed to grab it. He held up his free hand as he drank, something to say.

“Clover,” Marrow said, still a little breathy, “works me like a dog.” Clover laughed, and Marrow grinned. He continued:

“But I’m not here to just… take it easy, am I?”

“Well, now you can relax as much as you want until tomorrow. Unless you want to do something for your arms…?” Clover asked, teasing the exhausted Marrow, who looked horrified at the suggestion.

Qrow handed Clover his jacket, blue denim with a patch on the back of his emblem, and Clover slipped it on gratefully. Marrow was blow-drying his hair in front of a mirror on the other side of the room, but Clover was just leaving his to air-dry. He took Kingfisher from one of the taller lockers, and then nodded at Qrow. The two men left the changing room and Qrow led slightly as they walked through the corridors and then left the building altogether, heading for the gates at the edge of the compound.

“Is it far?” Clover asked. Qrow smirked, and wagged a finger.

“I told you, it’s a secret. Although, to be honest, I’m shocked you’re even trusting me. And don’t you and your Ace Op pals preach that friendship is evil?” Clover rolled his eyes.

“Well, you aren’t an Ace Op. But there’s a difference between being friends, and socialising in a friendly way whilst still keeping it professional. And, finally, I don’t have any reason _not_ to trust you.” Clover waved briefly at a camera on the guardhouse and pulled his scroll from his pocket, and there was a click as the smaller personnel gate alongside the large vehicular one swung open.

The sign was illuminated, and the design was quite tasteful. Clover read it aloud.

“'Atlesian Social'?”

“Save your questions,” Qrow said, and walked in, holding the door open for Qrow.

The bar was dim, but not too dim. There were vines and ivy decorating the ceiling, and lots more plants around the room, in between tables and chairs and sofas and armchairs. Music was playing, electroswing, although it was relatively busy in here, and so the noise of dozens of conversations somewhat masked it. Qrow walked up to the bar, and flagged down one of the bar staff. Clover came up beside him, and spoke almost directly into Qrow’s ear so he could be heard.

“I can’t drink, it’s a work night. And I thought you-”

“You won’t drink, don’t worry. Neither will I,” Qrow said. “What’s your favourite flavour?” Clover was puzzled.

“Blackberry, maybe?” he answered. Qrow nodded.

“Find us somewhere to sit, I’ll be over in a second.”

Clover was sat in a corner, in one of three armchairs around a small circular table. He looked up and saw Qrow scanning the room for him, so he waved, and Qrow grinned when he noticed. He carried over two glasses, one with a purple drink in it, ice, blackberries and mint at the top, and one that was simply clear, with ice and sliced lemon. Qrow put the blackberry one in front of Clover, and settled himself into the chair opposite, sipping at his own drink. He absolutely adored the way it tasted. Clover picked up his own and tried it, and then smiled at Qrow.

“Okay, then. Can I ask you the questions now?” Clover asked.

“Go ahead. Let me be your oracle.”

“Well, first, we appear to be in a bar, is that right?”

“Yes. And as you so accurately read outside, it’s called Atlesian Social. New. Very hip. Very happening. I’m about two decades older than the target audience,” Qrow said with a smirk.

“Seems fashionable. It’s nice. But there’s no alcohol in the place, is there?”

“Spot on. Well, some of the spirits have trace amounts, but you find more alcohol in liqueur chocolates. And all the people behind the bar used to have addictions, either to drink or other stuff.” Qrow shifted slightly in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. Clover drank a little more.

“I mean,” Clover said, “seems like a good place to spend some time out of the house, without alcohol or it being… childish. But, Qrow, why did you ask me to come with you? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind. It’s nice to get off the compound. But why not bring your nieces or something?” Qrow looked awkwardly off to the side.

“Don’t wanna cramp their style, force them to hang out with me. And technically, Ruby’s still only 17, so wouldn’t be allowed in here, even though she’s a Huntress. Jimmy-”

“The General,” Clover interrupted.

“Whatever. He’s too busy these days to even take lunch away from his desk, and I don’t have many friends, especially not in Atlas. I guess I could have come on my own, but…”

“But?” Qrow bit the inside of his cheek and then met Clover’s eyes.

“I was scared. I knew I wanted to come here, into a bar environment, but I was worried that I’d be too weak, and that I’d just say ‘fuck it’ and go to a normal bar afterwards and get drunk. Wanted to test myself, test my limits, but I was petrified I’d ruin it all.” Clover’s smile was gentle.

“You’re brave to come here at all, even with me. Your recovery is going well. How many days have you had sober now?” Qrow looked at his lap guiltily.

“Uh, only 18, because I made a shitty decision a couple of weeks ago and drank. Felt so bad the next morning, though. I haven’t touched any since. Before that night, I’d made it 24.”

“For a man who drank very close to every single day, and binged more nights than he didn’t, that’s incredibly impressive. And relapse is part of recovery, you know.”

“I know. Doc keeps saying that. Says the addiction might keep kicking me to the ground, but if I really want to get better, I just have to keep on getting back up,” Qrow said. He took an ice cube into his mouth and crunched it. Clover cringed a little at the noise, at the imagination of the feeling, and Qrow laughed.

It was quarter to eleven when Qrow beeped Clover back into the compound with his scroll (these days, his personal one was authorised for Atlas, and gone were the days of having a second to appease the security-conscious General). However, Qrow let the gate shut and locked himself back out, telling Clover he was just going to the all-night corner shop before he went to bed, and to go and get himself off to sleep as early as possible, since the Ace Ops were all due up at five for some Brothers-forsaken reason. It was a very short walk to the nearest off-license, and the neon glow of the sign was bright against the darkness. There was a soft bell when Qrow stepped through the door, and the shopkeeper nodded at him in greeting. All the spirits were on shelves behind the counter, lined up neatly and enticingly. Wine and beer was kept in an aisle at the back of the shop. Qrow scanned the room until he found what he was looking for.

Qrow was whistling as he walked through the corridors of the school, _House of the Rising Sun._ He walked past a few Atlas students, all in pyjamas at this time, and he’d grown used to the weird looks some of them gave him. He felt it was flattering, actually, that he was quite so (in?)famous, even in a Kingdom he wasn’t born or taught in. He wondered how often James decided to sing his praises, or whatever. He was swinging a plastic bag back and forth in rhythm with his whistling, the rustle really quite musical. He knocked on the door to RWBY’s dorm room, and he heard Weiss call for him to come in.

“Y’know,” he said, pushing open the door, “you’re meant to ask who it is since it’s after eleven. Oh, hi. When’d you join in, Polendina?” RWBYJNR and Oscar were all still here, but so was Penny. She smiled at Qrow.

“Approximately forty two minutes ago.” Qrow nodded at her, and removed Harbinger from his back, leaning it against the wall and sitting down on the floor next to Ruby.

“What’s in the bag, Uncle Qrow?” She asked. “Gold? Treasure? _Cash_?” She grabbed onto his arm and leant against him. He didn’t smell the same as she remembered from hugging him when she was a tiny child, but it was still _him_. It made her feel safe. He laughed at her, and slipped his wrist out from where the handles were looped around it. He had to physically extract the first thing – three litres of Dr Pepper – but then he just flipped it upside-down, and shook out two tubes of Pringles and several multipacks of chocolate bars. The last things to fall out were two packets of collectible ‘Frozen 2’ stickers. He picked these up and handed them to Penny, who was sat on Ruby’s other side.

“You can’t eat the junk, so I figured I’d get you something else. I know you like this movie, so-”

“Thank you so much, Mr Branwen! Can I ask you a question?” Qrow scratched at his stubble, and he saw Nora rip open a packet of Crunchies in the corner of his eye.

“Sure thing.”

“What is ‘bukkake’? I had it as a card earlier but everyone is too embarrassed to explain it to me. Oscar also does not understand. I imagine you will be forwards enough to tell us.” Oscar blushed, and most of the others started laughing. Ruby was cringe-laughing, holding onto Qrow’s arm. He bit back his own laugh.

It was about midnight when Qrow caught Oscar’s eye as the boy was yawning widely. They’d mostly put Cards Against Humanity on hold, and had instead just sat there drinking the pop and eating the snacks, chatting about whatever.

“None of you kids thinking about going to bed?” Qrow asked. Oscar finished his yawn and smiled sheepishly. Ruby was leaning all her weight on Qrow now, one hand curled into his shirt, the other resting in her lap.

“It would be sensible. You’re all scheduled for standard student reveille at zero seven fifteen, so really it’s already past the recommended bedtime,” Penny said.

“Don’t call it a bedtime, Penny, we’re nineteen,” Yang said. “But you’re probably right.”

“Will you do it before they go back, Uncle Qrow?” Ruby said sleepily, tugging at his shirt. He sighed dramatically.

“If you’re all completely desperate, I’ll do it.”

“It _would_ be super-cool to see up close!” Nora said. Qrow rolled his eyes, and pushed Ruby off him. He stood, and for a second it was like all of the kids’ eyes short-circuited, because their brains just weren’t built to comprehend the transformation of a 6’2” man into a bird that wasn’t even a foot tall and barely weighed half a kilo. For the briefest moment, they saw both Qrow’s red Aura and something else, a soft forest-green sheen, flicker over his feathers, but then it was gone, and he just looked exactly like a normal carrion crow, albeit with red eyes, rather than black.

Nora reached across the pile of cards in the middle of the room and fluffed Qrow’s head-feathers with two fingers. She then ran them down his back, feathers slightly slick with preening oil. Said feathers were so black they were almost deep, deep blue, and he ruffled them under Nora’s touch, almost as if he was shivering.

“You’re actually so incredibly cute!” Nora said, and then yelped as Qrow pecked at her hand.

“I think it’s fascinating. You can understand us properly, can’t you? But… well, how do your senses work? Is the visual image you get the same that an actual bird would get?” Ren asked. Qrow nodded, and they watched as he walked across the carpet over to one of the tubes of Pringles. He bumped his head against it, and Blake picked it up and extracted a crisp. She held it out to him, and he took it in his beak, before dropping it and pecking at it, breaking a small piece off. They all watched as he tilted his head back to consume it.

“It’s _so_ disconcerting. I’m watching my own mom’s twin brother pecking at crumbs of potato,” Yang said, and Qrow flicked his head in her direction for a second. Of course, his eyes were now on the sides of his head, still red, wet and shiny, so he couldn’t really look directly at people. He stretched out his wings, and Nora darted her fingers in again, touching the feathers that would normally be hidden when his wings were tucked against his body. He crowed, but kept his wings stretched out for a second, letting her stroke the feathers.

When Nora’s hand retreated, Qrow took off from the ground, and Weiss resisted the urge to bat at him when he landed on her shoulder. His talons didn’t pierce through her pyjama top, but she could feel the pressure of them. He was lighter than she’d expected. Yang stood, and then moved to sit next to Weiss, and gingerly ran two fingers of her flesh hand down Qrow’s back, like Nora had. Jaune and Ren were collecting up the cards, sorting them into the two categories to put them away neatly. The others were all watching the bird. Then, Yang moved one of her fingers to the corner of Qrow’s eye, and he flinched away, but she did it again and he stayed still. Very gently, she rubbed away some of the gunk on the fluffy bits around his eye.

It came as a huge shock to Qrow when Yang’s other hand suddenly pulled hard on one of the longest feathers on his wing, ripping it out of him. He crowed loudly in pain and spread his wings, hitting Weiss in the face. She squealed, and Qrow flew down off her to the space by the door, just behind Oscar. Oscar turned to look down at Qrow, and tentatively held out a hand to the bird. Qrow walked over and bumped his head against Oscar’s hand. Oscar stroked Qrow, gently going over the part where the feather had just come from, judging by the crooked ones next to it. Oscar felt a very strange sensation, and for a brief second, the same soft forest-green colour was visible at the connection of his hand and Qrow’s back. Then, Qrow moved away, and when there was enough room, he turned back into a human. Yang was holding the feather in her mechanical fingers, and Qrow glared at her.

“Y’know, firecracker, birds do feel pain! Would you like it if I ripped out a chunk of your hair?” Qrow sounded a little hurt.

“Sorry, Uncle Qrow,” Yang said. “I wanted to know if it would disappear when you turned back.”

“No, because it’s no longer a part of me. Don’t do that again. It’s bullying.”

“And you can’t cope with a tiny bit of bullying from your teenage niece?”

“I’m sensitive, Yang. You have to be nice to me. I’m old, shock might kill me. Anyway, if you’re all done _petting_ me, you should go to bed. I should, too, I’m hopefully getting up in the morning as well.” Jaune nodded, and stood, holding two of the game boxes.

“Qrow?" Jaune asked, and then paused awkwardly. He took a breath, and continued:

"When was the last time you drank?” Qrow scratched a hand through his hair, and grabbed Harbinger, securing it to his back. He was trying his best to be open with the kids, since they had watched him traipse from Haven to here with figuratively more alcohol than blood in his system.

“Two and a half weeks ago. After that shitty night. Sorry about that,” he answered, a little awkwardly.

“Don’t apologise. It’s good you’re doing well,” Jaune said. “Anyway, we’ll see you guys in the morning. Thanks for the snacks, Qrow.” JNR left, and Penny – who had gathered up all the chocolate wrappers in thanks for RWBY letting her play games with them, which they insisted they didn’t need thanking for – followed just after. Qrow half-contemplated climbing out of the window and flying around the building to his own room, but he was fairly sure he’d left his own window locked shut. He secured Harbinger to his back, and walked out into the hallway. It was empty of kids, and he didn’t resume whistling, since it was late, and the Atlesian kids were probably as highly-strung as James had been back in the day. He wondered if the General was still awake.

“Uncle Qrow!” Ruby called, and Qrow stopped and turned to her. She ran over to him, the carpet muffling her footsteps. She had bunny slippers on, and was wearing the standard Atlas pyjamas, like all RWBYJNR did these days.

“Hey, kiddo. Forget something?” She stopped just in front of him. Her eyes were glittering.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute. I know it’s late, and you probably want to go to bed, but-”

“Ruby, I’d move planets for you if you asked. I’ll listen to you yapping at any time of night.” She grinned.

“Can we maybe go and sit in an empty classroom? Will your scroll unlock one at this time?”

“I think yours would, since you’re technically not a student, but a visiting Huntress. Mine definitely will, though. I’m Jimmy’s favourite.” He began to walk down the corridor towards the stairs that would take them down to the teaching floors. Ruby grabbed his hand and held it as they walked together.

They were sat in chairs next to each other in one of the smaller lecture theatres, the lights at the back on but not the ones at the front, so it wasn’t eye-scorchingly bright like it was during lectures. Now that they were sat alone, however, Ruby had clammed up. Qrow cracked a few of his better uncle jokes, but she barely even laughed. Qrow sighed.

“Please, kiddo. Tell me what’s got you all worked up.” She leant to the side and rested her head on Qrow’s upper arm. He used his other hand to gently muss her hair.

“I miss my mom,” Ruby said quietly. Qrow sighed.

“I miss her too.”

“But I don’t have many memories of her. And we’ve done so much stuff, with Beacon, then Haven, and now we’re in Atlas… I don’t want to forget anything else about her.” She sniffed a little.

“Doesn’t matter how much stuff you do. The feelings, what matters, you’ll never forget that stuff. I promise.” Ruby was silent for a minute before replying.

“Do you mind if I just kind of…. talk at you for a bit?”

“Rubes, if I minded about how chatty you were, I probably would have shot myself a decade ago.” She giggled.

Ruby only had memories of a few adults in her childhood. Most of them were of Taiyang; then the second-most of Qrow, and then of Summer. She’d been told when she was a little older that four of her Beacon teachers – most frequently Port and Oobleck, then Goodwitch, and even Ozpin a couple of times – had met her when she was very little, but after Summer had died, and Taiyang had the therapist come and visit him for an hour each day, the family that was left had kept to themselves a little more, so Ruby couldn’t remember any of them. The only other adult she could remember prominently was Madame Mallari, who’d been great for her, Yang and their dad after-

After Qrow had finally left. Ruby loved him to pieces, and hadn’t really understood why Qrow had gone. He came back, sometimes, and when she’d finally got to go to Signal when she was 11, he’d spent longer periods around, teaching her but also just being an uncle again, rather than a Huntsman who dropped by to say hello to his old teammate. But because she was older, she began to see his problems. How some nights he didn’t come home at all, how sometimes his eyes were just a bit glassy when he taught bigger classes, how him and Taiyang would get each other on edge and start yelling before quickly stopping themselves because the girls were in bed. Nowadays, she understood a little better, because she knew what Qrow and Taiyang were going through, both with Raven and Summer, but also with their work for Ozpin. Especially Qrow, who, as he’d said himself, pretty much gave his life for Ozpin.

Ruby was worried she was losing it. She hugged Qrow tight, and her voice sounded strained, as if she was trying not to cry. They were safe now, safe in Atlas, with the General’s plan to re-establish communications one that maybe, really could help. But she was lying to him about Salem, about what Jinn had said. And sometimes, it felt like that idea – the fact that a being of all knowledge had looked at Ozpin and told him Salem couldn’t be killed – was eating her alive. She couldn’t sleep, curling up into a ball and her heart hurting. She thought endlessly about mistakes she’d made leading her friends from Vale to Haven, mistakes she’d made from Haven to Atlas, how any of them could have died and it would have been her fault.

“Is this why you drank? Does it work?” Ruby was crying, now, her face against Qrow’s chest, leant awkwardly across from her chair. He’d wrapped his arms around her, hugging her. His heart felt like it was breaking, and even though Ruby was 17 – still ridiculously young given what she was going through – it was like having her as a toddler in his arms all over again.

“Yeah. You’ve summed it up pretty well. That shit, those horrible feelings, I ended up drinking to try and run from them. It wasn’t a good decision. And it became something that was making absolutely everything way worse. No, overall, it doesn’t work. It’s expensive as hell, has done a serious number on my health, and while yeah, I could pass out and stop thinking about the bad stuff, everything was always worse when I woke up.” Qrow twisted his fingers softly into Ruby’s hair. She looked up at him.

“Sorry. I’ve gotten your shirt kinda… snotty.”

“I forgive you, squirt. I’m sure it’ll wash out. You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah. I love you too. The best uncle I could ever wish for. My eyes hurt.”

“I bet. You’re tired and you’ve been crying. We should get you to bed.”

“What do I do, though? How do I stop the bad feelings?” Qrow sighed, and gently pushed Ruby up into a sitting position. They looked at each other.

“You get the other feelings to come through. You remember good times. You think about how much you love your friends and family. It won’t stop the bad parts, but hopefully it’ll make them shut up enough for you to drift off, or carry on with whatever it is you’re trying to do. If it gets really bad, though, kid… there’s no shame in seeing a therapist. Maybe taking some meds. But for now, you need to get some sleep.” Ruby nodded, and stood up. Qrow took Harbinger and holstered it, before suddenly picking Ruby up, resting her on her hip, like she was a little kid. She squeaked in surprise.

It wasn’t a long walk back to RWBY’s dorms, and Qrow deposited Ruby just outside it before saluting to her jokingly and heading off towards the military side, so he could go to bed himself. He hummed gently as he walked, _Lucy_ by Adam Lambert and Brian May, and his room’s lock beeped gently as he disengaged it with his scroll. He almost stood on something that had been slotted under his door – a glossy A5 leaflet, with a Post-It note stuck on it. He put Harbinger in the corner, then grabbed the leaflet. He read the note first.

‘ _In case you wanted more alcohol-free things to do without feeling like you’re at a kid’s birthday party. Marrow found it. Let me know and I’ll come with you. – Clover’_

Qrow raised his eyebrows, and peeled the note from the flyer. It was for the arcade – the kind where you won tickets and exchanged them for dumb prizes, not the adult one with outright gambling and slot machines – that wasn’t far from the school. Usually, it was packed with students from the Academy, but the advert was for a night in a week or so where from 6pm until midnight, when it closed, only qualified Huntresses and Huntsmen could go in. While the arcade was maybe childish, if it was just full of adults, Qrow could see how it’d be different – and alcohol was banned in there, anyway. He left the note and the flyer on his desk, so he’d remember to mention it to Clover. He wondered if Clover’s Semblance was common knowledge, or at least common enough that he might get in trouble if he played the games.

The room was quite cold, and while Qrow would have been able to fall asleep, he had the luxury of being able to do what he liked with the thermostat, so he cranked it up to 22°C from his scroll. He’d rejected standard-issue Atlas pyjamas (Yang had said she was certain he’d only been offered them as a joke; Qrow wasn’t so sure, given James himself slept in them, because he was always more comfortable in uniform) and so was in a dark-red t-shirt and black sweatpants with the logo of the Kingdom of Mistral on the pocket. He flipped over onto his other side, so he was facing out into the room instead of the wall, and scrolled through his messages. Ruby had texted him goodnight just after he’d made it back to his room, Clover had texted him to say thanks for buying his drinks, James had last texted him about twelve hours ago asking him if he was free to come up to the Headmaster’s office.

He let himself give in the temptation to scroll to older messages, and looked through – like he’d done a thousand times before – his long-since inactive conversation with Ozpin. The last few messages wrenched his heart, because Ozpin had been mere hours away from his own death. It was as if everything was normal, as if it wasn’t right before a few awful events that would wreck everything. Qrow missed Oz like hell – and yet he was still so horrifically angry. So angry that Oz lied to him. That Oz let him lay down his life in the way he did, despite knowing it was going to be futile.

‘ _he didn’t even care about you or he wouldn’t have done this’_

_‘you handed your whole pathetic life to him just so you could feel wanted’_

_‘and you say you’re continuing his work but you have no idea what you’re doing’_

‘ _everything around you is in ruins and you’re useless to fix it’_

“No,” Qrow mumbled, and tugged his duvet up closer to his head. He needed to listen to his own advice. He could tell Ruby what to do, and he could do it to himself. What instead?

_‘Oz told me he loved me. He cared about me. He was just in such a shitty situation.’_

_‘I gave my life not just to him, but to everyone who we were trying to protect. I am a Huntsman.’_

_‘None of us ever knew for sure. Going to the Kingdoms, securing the Relics, this is our best bet.’_

_‘The world around you is fucked, but we’re all going to drag it back together.’_

Qrow breathed out, slowly and deliberately. That was better. Much more positive. Much nicer. He checked his alarm was set – it was, seven on the dot – and then locked his scroll and put it on his bedside table. None of what was happening was ideal. But he was getting through it – pretty well, he supposed. The situation was quite possibly the worst it had been in a long time, definitely the worst it had been since the Great War, and yet now was the time he’d managed to make any dent at all in recovering from his issues. He’d always thought Oz would be around to help him through it, but to be honest, he did have to admit Oz had been somewhat of an enabler in that regard.

It was these kids – the next generation – who were making him realise he was wrong. Qrow almost laughed when the thought occurred to him: these kids, RWBYJNR and Oscar, were making him change his ways, much like how STRQ had made Ozpin change. STRQ had changed Ozpin, not immensely, but enough – he’d become more open, and he’d granted the twins the first magic he had done since the maidens. Maybe, with STRQ’s encouragement, Oz had just done things he had the potential to do, but never managed. And that’s what the kids were doing for Qrow. After all, Ruby looked up to him not necessarily because of everything he did – the drinking, the cursing, the bad-decision-making – but the potential he had and sometimes showed – his abilities in battle, his resolution to fight, the way he cared for those he loved. The kids weren’t fundamentally changing Qrow, but they were definitely making him realise the better parts of himself again.

Qrow missed Raven deeply. Not as the woman she was now, but as the woman she had been – throwing whipped cream at him over dessert because he teased her, the way she’d fought alongside him in battle, how deeply she’d loved Taiyang when she found out she was pregnant. They’d thrown barbs at each other their whole lives – and he didn’t regret his words, telling her they weren’t family any more, but he didn’t believe her assertion they never had been. Growing up, they were two scrappy twins against the world, and made whatever sacrifices necessary for each other. He missed her. Missed what they’d had.

And he missed Summer, too – he missed her smile, how warm she always was, her abilities in a fight but also just her everyday happiness that had permeated all their lives. Summer had led STRQ fantastically. She’d spent hours and hours helping Raven and Qrow as they learnt to fly around the house in Patch (Qrow remembered almost taking a silver eye out with his talons when he’d misjudged a landing on her shoulder). He remembered how wonderfully she’d taken to Yang, how she’d gone from aunt to mother in a heartbeat, and he’d never doubted for a second how much she loved all of them, loved her family more than anything else in the world.

Qrow missed life when the girls were little – when their friends had time to come over, Yang learning how to do a back handspring, Ruby looking like a ghost when she got covered in flour making cookies. When, despite all that had happened breaking them apart, they found other ways to stick together, him and Tai arguing for hours only to forget it all because they cared about each other too much, Peter and Qrow trying (and occasionally failing) to stop smoking together, Glynda agreeing to babysit the night Bart got his PhD so the guys could go out, only for everyone to stay at home and order an insane amount of pizza instead.

And hell, he missed Ozpin, missed having someone like that to talk to, to hold and kiss and fuck when he came back from missions, this man who held all of Remnant’s secrets in his heart and had magic at his fingertips. Oz became Qrow’s life, the main thing he was living for (as much as he loved his friends and the girls and Tai). Ozpin could be difficult, could be impossible for days on end, closing himself off and refusing to just let Qrow love him, but then he could be so wonderful, so vulnerable, and he would hold Qrow, the man he’d chosen to be at his side in this life amongst many, and they would cling together for hours waiting to see if that night would be the one the world ended.

He missed James – James, who he finally did call by first name, and was probably asleep only a few rooms away right now. But he missed how James used to be, before Beacon fell, before he was on the defensive against his own Kingdom and the offensive against all the world’s evils, when Qrow finally got it through James’s thick, well-intentioned skull that it was no great immorality to kiss another man, when James had relaxed and laughed and agreed to that arrangement with him and Oz – shit, that was years and years ago. Who now was a man buried under sleepless nights and endless work, and was so stressed he hadn’t been able to get it up when Qrow visited him in the night last week (he’d been embarrassed, but Qrow didn’t mind).

Now, here, lying in a bed in Atlas, with his sister having abandoned him, Summer dead, all his friends dragged away from his, Ozpin reincarnated into a _child_ , James so stressed he wasn’t himself, Qrow thought that, by rights, he should be doing a lot worse. But he wasn’t, he was doing okay. No time like the present for self-improvement, he supposed. He rolled onto his front – an awkward way to sleep, yes, but Qrow had always loved it, even if it did run the risk of making his neck hurt all the next day from being twisted, and shifted his legs around until he was comfortable. The room was warmer now.

Qrow fell asleep, sober.


End file.
